Preamble

The House met at a Quarter before Three of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

Ministry of Health Provisional Order Confirmation (Wellington, Salop) Bill [Lords],

Read the Third time, and passed, with

Amendments.

Oral Answers to Questions — ARGENTINA (BRITISH INTERESTS).

Captain ERSKINE-BOLST: 2.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether his attention has been called to the provisions of the Argentine railway pensions law so far as they concern the numerous British employes on Argentine railways; and whether, in view of the fact that the pensions payable to these employés will be reduced by two-thirds if they leave the Argentine, he will make a protest in the matter?

The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir John Simon): I would refer my hon. and gallant Friend to the answer given to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Chippenham (Captain Cazalet) on the 9th November.

Mr. POTTER: 4.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs the arrangements by which the Argentine authorities pay to the railways working in Argentina with British capital all overdue debts owing to them by the national and provincial Governments for freight and other charges; and whether the Argentine Government bonds, issued to the railway companies as a solution of the frozen exchange difficulty, discharge also the debt for unpaid freight in full, and to what date?

Sir J. SIMON: As was stated in reply to my hon. and gallant Friend the Mem-
ber for Portsmouth, North (Sir B. Falle) on the 25th July last, the amounts falling due, from time to time, to the British railway companies from the Argentine national and provincial Governments are by way of current account for freights and charges, and are discharged, also from time to time, in the normal way. I am informed that very considerable payments have in fact been made during recent months. There is no direct connection between this matter and the scheme whereby sterling bonds are being issued by the Argentine Government in exchange for peso balances, except in so far as this scheme has been of benefit to all holders of peso balances awaiting remittance to this country on the 1st May last.

Mr. SAVERY: 7.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the attention of the Argentine representatives at the commercial conference was drawn to the disinclination of British investors to venture further capital for the development of Argentina in view of the opposition by the Argentine Government railway lines to the railways operating with British capital under concessions from the Argentine Government; and will he make further representations on the subject to the Argentine Government in view of their decision to construct an alternative line to Mendoza?

Mr. BROCKLEBANK: 9.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will request the Argentine Ambassador in London to represent to his Government that the action of the Argentine Government lines serving Santa Fe relative to the freight tariff between Mendoza and San Juan and Buenos Ayres injures the existing local railway system, long operated by British capital, and to request that it may be modified in the interest of British investors?

Sir J. SIMON: It will be recalled that in the Protocol attached to the Anglo-Argentine Convention of the 1st May last, the Argentine Government declared their intention to accord such benevolent treatment, so far as lies within their constitutional sphere of action, to public utility and other undertakings carrying on business in Argentina with the aid of British capital, as may conduce to the further
economic development of the country and to the due and legitimate protection of the interests concerned in their operation. Having regard to the terms of this declaration, His Majesty's Government would be prepared to consider any specific claim for assistance which may be brought to their notice by the interested party, and to make suitable representations whenever it appears, from the nature of any particular case, that such a course could usefully be taken.

Mr. T. WILLIAMS: Why should we interfere with the Argentine Government in any way?

Mr. LOUIS SMITH: Is the right hon. Gentleman in close touch with his right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade in regard to this matter, so that before any new agreement is made these unfavourable developments will be taken into consideration?

Sir J. SIMON: The Government in all these matters act together.

Oral Answers to Questions — GERMANY

BRITISH JOURNALIST'S ARREST.

Mr. MANDER: 3.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has ascertained the reasons why Mr. Panter was asked to leave Germany; whether any compensation is to be paid; and if assurances have been obtained that British journalists in Germany will in future be free to report what they see?

Sir J. SIMON: As regards the first part of the question the reasons for which Mr. Panter was asked to leave Germany were, according to the semi-official Press communique issued in Berlin, that he had carried out his journalistic activities in a manner which rendered his continued presence in Germany undesirable. As regards the second part of the question, the answer is in the negative. As regards the third part of the question, I trust that British journalists in Germany will in future be free to carry on the exercise of their profession.

Mr. MANDER: Does the right hon. Gentleman really believe that Mr. Panter was carrying out his duties improperly, and is he going to allow a British journalist to be removed from a country without apology and without any definite charge? Is he not going to take some further action in the matter?

Sir J. SIMON: I shall be glad to confer with my hon. Friend as to the form of action he suggests.

DISARMAMENT.

Mr. MANDER: 10.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs the decision reached by the Government and conveyed to the German Government as a result of the proposals made to him by Prince Bismarck on the subject of disarmament on 6th October?

Sir J. SIMON: I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply returned by the Prime Minister on the 13th November to a Private Notice Question put by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition.

Mr. MANDER: In view of the fact that the verbal statement made by Prince Bismarck has been published and is known to the world, is it not desirable that the people of this country should know what is the decision of the Government on Prince Bismarck's proposals?

Sir J. SIMON: I must point out that, while everybody must judge for himself, the hon. Member was informed by the Prime Minister that
in the wider interests of the constructive work of the Conference, it would be better not to take this course, if it could be avoided.
The hon. Member takes a different view. Perhaps he will realise that that is the view taken by the head of His Majesty's Government.

Mr. MANDER: 11.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the effect of the British draft agreement would be, at the end of the disarmament period, to permit Germany to equip her self with tanks, heavy mobile artillery, and other armaments now forbidden to her by the Treaty of Versailles?

Sir J. SIMON: I would refer my hon. Friend to the text of the Draft Disarmament Convention issued as Command Paper No. 4279.

MEXICO (BRITISH INVESTORS).

Mr. POTTER: 5.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the official declaration issued by M. Alberto J. Pani, president of the Mexican delegation to the Monetary and Economic Conference, on 15th June, 1933, included any offer by the Mexican delegation to terminate the default since 1913 until now of the Mexican Government's obligations to British subjects; and, if not, will he request M. Pani to state the intention of his Government on this point?

Sir J. SIMON: The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative. As regards the default of the Mexican Government on its foreign obligations, I have nothing to add to the information given in reply to the question by my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing (Sir F. Sanderson) on the 9th November, and, in view of the position as then stated, I do not consider that intervention by His Majesty's Government is called for.

Oral Answers to Questions — AUSTRIA.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: 6.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what comment has been made on the Austrian Government's communication to His Majesty's Government regarding their proposed emergency anti-Semitic measures?

Sir J. SIMON: His Majesty's Government have received no communication from the Austrian Government on the subject mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman.

Captain CUNNINGHAM-REID: 8.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if any variation has been made as proposed in Article 126 of the Treaty of St. Germains: and, if so, the extent of such variation?

Sir J. SIMON: On the 1st September last the Austrian Government were informed by His Majesty's Government and by the French and Italian Governments, that these Governments agreed to the request of the Austrian Government to raise, as a temporary and exceptional measure, the effectives of the Federal army to the total limit of 30,000 men fixed by Article 120 of the Treaty of St. Germain, by the additional re-
cruitment for one year of an auxiliary military force of 8,000 men, composed of volunteers enlisted for six months. It has been further agreed that the period of one year should run from the 6th November, the date of the incorporation of the new recruits in the Federal Army. It will be appreciated by my hon. and gallant Friend that these arrangements do not involve any increase beyond the permitted treaty total.

Oral Answers to Questions — MANCHURIA (LYTTON REPORT).

Captain ERSKINE-BOLST: 12.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the general committee of 21, appointed to implement the action of the League of Nations Assembly on the Lytton Report, has made any recommendations to the different Governments concerned and, if so, of what nature; and whether he can state the policy of the British Government towards such recommendations?

Sir J. SIMON: The Advisory Committee have made certain technical recommendations in pursuance of the Assembly resolution of the 24th February, 1933, regarding the non-recognition of Manchukuo. These were transmitted to members of the League on the 14th June and were accepted by His Majesty's Government.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROYAL NAVY.

SUBMARINES.

Rear-Admiral SUETER: 15.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether, in connection with the recent grounding of submarines L 19 and L 26, any experienced submarine officer has ever been associated with those who compile the sailing directions for His Majesty's ships; and, if not, whether he will appoint a small committee of submarine officers to run through the sailing directions to see if better guidance can be given to those called upon to navigate His Majesty's submarines in waters where abnormal tides and strong tidal eddies may be experienced?

The FIRST LORD of the ADMIRALTY (Sir Bolton Eyres Monsell): No submarine officer has ever been associated with the compilation of sailing directions: these are compiled by navigating
and surveying officers specially qualified for such work. The navigation of submarines is in no way different from that of other ships. In the circumstances I am satisfied that no useful purpose would be served by the appointment of the committee suggested.

Rear-Admiral SUETER: Do not submarines experience interference in normal tidal waters?

Sir B. EYRES MONSELL: They do not experience anything that any other ship would not experience.

Rear-Admiral SUETER: Is not underwater navigation more difficult than on the surface?

Sir B. EYRES MONSELL: It is certainly more difficult if they are submerged. The smaller submarines have orders not to submerge if careful navigation is required, and the larger submarines are not allowed to submerge in less than 15 fathoms of water.

Sir GIFFORD FOX: 19.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether, in connection with the grounding of submarines L 19 and 26, he will look into the adequacy of the information at present available to British submarine commanders either on charts, notices to mariners, or other publications?

Sir B. EYRES MONSELL: The grounding of submarines L 19 and 26 was not due to any lack of navigational information. Charts, notices to marines, and other navigational publications are supplied to submarines precisely as they are to other ships of the Royal Navy; these contain the most complete and up-to-date information available, and are considered adequate.

Mr. LAMBERT: 16.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty the number of submarines built and building by France, Great Britain and Germany, respectively, since 11th November, 1918?

Sir B. EYRES MONSELL: France, since the 11th November, 1918, has built or is building 80 submarines. Great Britain has built or is building 32. Germany has built and is building none.

Mr. LAMBERT: Why is France building an enormous number of submarines, seeing that Germany is not building any?

DOCKYARD WORKERS, MALTA (DISMISSALS).

Mr. T. WILLIAMS: 17.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether the dockyard workers in Malta who were suspended pending an appeal in the High Court have now been reinstated?

Sir B. EYRES MONSELL: The appeal of the men referred to has been dismissed and they have now been discharged from the dockyard.

Mr. WILLIAMS: Are we to understand the First Lord to imply that these workmen, whose sentence has been remitted by the Colonial Secretary, or by the Governor on the Colonial Secretary's behalf, who were prosecuted for reading books written by Lord Passfield, George Bernard Shaw and others, are to be suspended permanently from their employment in the dockyard?

Sir B. EYRES MONSELL: Yes, Sir. The Governor remitted their sentences because their appeal was dismissed on purely technical grounds and exercised his right of clemency because of that fact; but these men were convicted of seditious propaganda in the dockyard, and they are dismissed and will remain dismissed.

Mr. WILLIAMS: Does the right hon. Gentleman regard it as a crime for any Maltese person——

Mr. SPEAKER: That is quite another question to the one on the Order Paper.

Mr. WILLIAMS: On a point of Order. Might I not suggest that as the First Lord of the Admiralty is indirectly responsible for the employment of these men in Malta, questions such as these are permissible as to whether men can lose their work permanently for having committed an alleged crime, for which they have been dismissed?

Mr. SPEAKER: It is not in order to ask on a Supplementary question what the First Lord thinks. The question on the Order Paper asks whether the men who were suspended have been reinstated. The First Lord has replied. The hon. Member cannot raise the whole question. If he wants further information he had better put down another question.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Would it be possible for the First Lord to ascertain exactly what was the crime alleged?

Viscountess ASTOR: Will the First Lord make it quite clear——

Mr. SPEAKER: The First Lord has given his reply.

INVALIDED RATINGS (LEAVE).

Sir BERTRAM FALLE: 18.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether ratings who have served on foreign stations, and who have become entitled to the leave laid down in paragraph 3 of Article 650 of the King's Regulations and Admiralty Instructions, are, when invalided direct from abroad, granted the foreign service leave earned in addition to the 28 days allowed to all invalids?

Sir B. EYRES MONSELL: As laid down in paragraph 8 of the Article quoted, men who are invalided before they have taken arrears of leave are not entitled to leave beyond the date of survey, apart from the 28 days to which my hon. and gallant Friend refers.

NEW CONSTRUCTION.

Captain PETER MACDONALD: 20.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether, in drawing up plans for new construction in the next financial year, he will take into account the desirability of undertaking the maximum possible work during the present period when unemployment, particularly in shipbuilding yards, is bad and costs of production are still low?

Sir B. EYRES MONSELL: My hon. and gallant Friend may rest assured that subject to our Treaty obligations and the financial situation due regard will be given to the considerations he mentions, the importance of which is fully realised.

ECONOMY CUTS.

Sir B. FALLE: 21.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether when opportunity arises for the abolition of the cuts in various civil and other services he will take care that the first to benefit from such abolition shall be the Royal Navy?

Sir B. EYRES MONSELL: I think it is clear that no Minister responsible for only one of the Services affected by the economy cuts is entitled to give such an assurance.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE AND COMMERCE.

SINGAPORE.

Mr. L. SMITH: 22.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether his attention has been called to the recent acceptance by the Singapore Municipal Commission of a tender by a Japanese firm, against which British firms were competing, for the supply of heavy cast-iron pipes; and whether he proposes to make any representations in this connection?

Mr. HERBERT WILLIAMS: 25.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that the Singapore municipal water department have placed within the last 12 months a large order for cast-iron water-pipes with a Japanese firm; and, if so, whether he will make representations to this municipality as to the desirability, whenever possible, of placing orders for such material in the United Kingdom?

The SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Sir Philip Cunliffe-Lister): I am informed by the Governor of the Straits Settlements that no order for cast-iron water-pipes has been placed by the Singapore Municipal Commissioners with a Japanese firm.

Mr. WILLIAMS: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Lloyd's Committee claim in their annual report much satisfaction because they were appointed to inspect the manufacture of these pipes in Japan and that they have gained some benefit by this order?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: I do not know what anybody has obtained, but I have made inquiries from the Governor of Singapore and the reply was that no order had been placed.

RUBBER INDUSTRY (RESTRICTION SCHEME).

Mr. RANKIN: 26.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what arrangements are being made for the representation of British interests at the conference to be held in the Dutch East Indies on 22nd November to consider the possibility of evolving a rubber restriction scheme; and what is the present policy of the British Government in this connection?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: The information in Press reports is that the
Batavia Conference is to be a meeting of officers of the Netherland East Indian Governments from various parts of the territory. There is no question, so far as I am aware, of British producers being represented at the meeting. As regards the last part of my hon. Friend's question, I stated in a reply given to him on the 11th of July the conditions which in the opinion of His Majesty's Government would require to be fulfilled in any satisfactory scheme of control.

JAPANESE COMPETITION.

Mr. CHORLTON: 36.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will represent to all Colonies the desirability of taking restrictive action against Japanese competition by dumping duties based on the wages and cost of living in Japan and this country?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: I would refer my hon. Friend to my reply to his question of the 9th of November and to the speech made by the President of the Board of Trade in the House on the same day.

Mr. CHORLTON: May I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman in his own Department is going to take some action other than that taken by the President of the Board of Trade?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: My answer, and the speech of the President of the Board of Trade, dealt fully with the matter, and we both explained that, pending these negotiations, it was not considered desirable to take action.

Mr. BAILEY: Can the right hon. Gentleman say how long it will be before His Majesty's Government will be in a position to give a plain and unequivocal answer to this question?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: His Majesty's Government have given a plain and straightforward answer, which is that, while negotiations are taking place, they do not propose to take action which they think might prejudice the negotiations. When these negotiations are likely to terminate is a matter for the President of the Board of Trade.

CUSTOMS DUTIES, AUSTRALIA.

Mr. GRAHAM WHITE (for Mr. HOLDSWORTH): 72.
asked the Secretary of
State for Dominion Affairs if he is aware of the action of the Australian Government in refusing in many cases to allow the deduction of discounts from prices quoted to merchants in the assessment of goods for the purposes of Customs Duties or in fixing the maximum discount in an arbitrary manner; and what steps he is taking to put an end to a system which is a handicap to British traders and in effect an infringement of the Ottawa Agreement?

Mr. WOMERSLEY (Lord of the Treasury): I have been asked to reply. If the hon. Member will be good enough to send my right hon. Friend fuller particulars of the precise difficulties which he has in mind, he will be glad to look into the subject further.

PALESTINE.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: 23.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will take steps to prevent a recurrence of Arab violence in Palestine; and whether he is satisfied that this violence is not inspired by certain persons using the funds of the Wakf?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: I am satisfied that the High Commissioner can be relied upon to take all possible steps to prevent a recurrence of disorder in Palestine. I am not aware of any grounds for the suggestion contained in the second part of the question.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied that this agitation was instigated by the effendi class in Palestine?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: The right hon. and gallant Gentleman puts a question on the Paper which suggests that the present disturbances have been instigated by the Wakf. I took the precaution of communicating with the High Commissioner on the spot before giving an answer. I have given the answer.

Mr. JANNER: 38.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies the excess of revenue over expenditure of the Palestine Government for the years 1930, 1931, and 1932?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: The figures are as follow:



£


1930—Deficit
46,959


1931—Deficit
40,972


1932 (January-March. Change of financial year)—Surplus
145,633


1932 (April)—1933 (March) Surplus
499,523

Mr. JANNER: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether these surpluses are due to a considerable extent to the energy of Jewish capital and labour in Palestine?

Lieut.-Colonel J. SANDEMAN ALLEN (for Sir NAIRNE STEWART SANDEMAN): 28.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what is the present percentage of Moslems in Palestine and what is the present percentage of Christian Arabs?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: The percentage of Moslems out of the total population of Palestine, as ascertained by the Census of 1931, was 73.34, and that of Christian Arabs 7.07.

Lieut.-Colonel SANDEMAN ALLEN (for Sir N. STEWART SANDEMAN): 29.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what is the amount of the total Jewish immigration into Palestine since Great Britain took the mandate; and what the numbers are under each classified nationality?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: As the answer is a long one and includes a detailed table, I will, with my hon. Friend's permission circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the answer:

During the period from the 1st July, 1920, when the Civil Administration was established, until the 31st August, 1933, 132,930 Jews have immigrated to Palestine. Until the 1st January, 1922, returns showing the countries of origin of immigrants were not furnished. The following table shows the countries of origin of Jewish immigrants to Palestine since that date.

Statement showing countries of origin of Jewish immigrants into Palestine from 1st January, 1922, to 21st August, 1933.

(No separate figures are available for preceding period.)


Total: 120,116.


EUROPE.


Austria
1,466


Belgium
173


Bulgaria
1,445


Czechoslovakia
826


Danzig
195


Denmark
9


Estonia
50


Finland
12


Franco
437


Germany
4,732


Greece
1,943


Hungary
451


Italy
214


Latvia
1,807


Lithuania
5,189


Netherlands
165


Poland
53,310


Portugal
14


Rumania
7,135


Russia
17,930


Rhodes
20


Spain
46


Sweden
4


Switzerland
90


United Kingdom and Irish Free State
882


Yugoslavia
257


South East Europe (unclassified)
389


Central Europe (unclassified)
136


Western Europe (unclassified)
34


Total
99,361

ASIA.


Aden and Yemen
4,330


Afghanistan
406


China
64


Cyprus
70


India
122


Iraq
2,548


Persia
1,389


Straits Settlements
8


Syria
533


Turkey
2,376


Asia (unclassified)
370


Asia, West and Central (unclassified)
547


Total
12,763


AFRICA.


Abyssinia
15


Algeria
18


Egypt
980


Morocco
116


Union of South Africa
158


Rhodesia
2


Tripolitania
4


Tunis
44


Tangier
4


Africa (unclassified)
1


North Africa (unclassified)
45


Total
1,387

AMERICA.


Latin America (unclassified)
360


Canada
195


British West Indies
1


United States of America
4,442


Argentine
58


Brazil
42


Columbia
27


Cuba
4


Mexico
49


Panama
22


Total
5,200


Australia
62


New Zealand
4


British Empire (unclassified)
14


Unspecified
1,325


Total
1,405

Vice-Admiral TAYLOR (for Major-General Sir ALFRED KNOX): 33.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies the number of immigrants who have entered Palestine in the first nine months of 1931, 1932 and 1933, respectively?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: With my hon. and gallant Friend's permission, I will circulate the figures in the OFFICIAL RETORT.

Vice-Admiral TAYLOR: Is it not a fact that the Arabs have repeatedly protested against the immigration of the Jews?

Mr. SPEAKER: The question asks for figures.

Following are the figures:

Number of immigrants entering Palestine in first nine is months of 1931, 1932 and 1933.

—
1931.
1932.
1933.


January
…
156
135
1,330


February
…
252
207
1,509


March
…
821
335
2,408


April
…
326
294
1,974


May
…
539
246
1,734


June
…
392
263
1,174


July
…
101
286
2,389


August
…
194
705
2,387


September
…
268
1,370
*




3,049
3,841
14,905






(8 months only)


* No returns are yet available for September, 1933.

Lieut.-Colonel SANDEMAN ALLEN (for Sir N. STEWART SANDEMAN): 30.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies at what rate immigrants were entering Palestine during the months of July, August, September and October;
what the numbers are under each nationality; and how many immigrants have entered in 1933?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: The answer is a long one and includes a table of figures. I will, therefore, with my hon. Friend's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the answer:

In July, 2,389 immigrants entered Palestine and in August, 2,387. The returns for September and October are not yet available. The table given below shows the countries of origin of the immigrants who entered in July and August. Up to the end of August 14,905 immigrants are recorded as having entered Palestine since the beginning of the year.

Numbers and countries of origin of immigrants entering Palestine during months of July and August, 1933.


County of origin.
July.
August.


Aden and Yemen
80
151


Austria
20
22


Brazil
1
5


Bulgaria
—
9


Canada
—
2


Czechoslovakia
18
32


Danzig
3
9


Egypt
11
12


Fstonia
—
2


France
—
14


Germany
443
399


Great Britain
28
22


Greece
66
241


Haiti
2
—


Hungary
8
5


India
—
6


Iraq
13
7


Italy
4
12


Latvia
5
32


Lithuania
130
36


Mexico
—
7


Netherlands
8
—


Persia
—
16


Poland
1,073
779


Rumania
70
204


Russia
39
35


Salvador
5
—


Spain
3
2


Switzerland
—
2


Syria
2
8


Turkey
4
16


Union of South Africa
1
1


U.S.A
152
42


Venezuela
—
1


Yugoslavia
5
16


Stateless
195
190


Total
2,389
2,387

Vice-Admiral TAYLOR (for Sir A. KNOX): 34.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he can make a statement regarding the causes of the recent outbreak in Palestine?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: I would refer my hon. and gallant Friend to the full statement which I made on the 7th of November in reply to the hon. Member for Gower (Mr. D. Grenfell.)

Vice-Admiral TAYLOR: Does the right hon. Gentleman not consider that if there were some reduction in the number of Jew immigrants, in view of the Arab feelings in the matter—

Mr. SPEAKER: That is purely a matter of opinion.

MALTA.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: 24.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, as a result of the changes in the administraiton of Malta, he anticipates any trouble in carrying out his pledges to this House on the language question?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: No, Sir.

CEYLON.

Mr. DAVID GRENFELL: 27.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether ho is aware that evidence has been produced before the sub-committee investigating in the north of Ceylon the question of child adoption and recruitment of servants to the effect that children are being sold openly in the market place; and what steps he proposes to take in the matter?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: The subcommittee referred to is one which has been appointed by the Executive Committee for Home Affairs of the State Council, and it will report to that body. I have not yet seen the evidence given to the sub-committee and it will be for the Board of Ministers to consider in the first instance what action is desirable on the report.

Brigadier-General Sir HENRY CROFT: Are not such problems as these inevitable where self-government is prematurely established?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: I think that problems of this kind are almost inevitable everywhere.

Mr. GRENFELL: will the right hon. Gentleman exercise his influence to see that this blot is removed?

Sir P. CUNLIFFEE-LISTER: I think it would be premature for me to make any statement on this matter until I receive a report from the Governor, and have had an opportunity of considering it.

Mr. T. WILLIAMS (for Mr. T. SMITH): 32.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what reports he has received recently regarding the working of the constitution of Ceylon; whether His Majesty's Government have under consideration proposals for its alteration; and whether he can make any statement in the matter?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: I have not received any formal report on this subject. I ought to add that when it was recently suggested that I should receive a deputation from the State Council, I informed the Acting Governor that I should wish to make it clear that I should not be willing at this date to entertain any proposals for the reduction or material modification of the powers conferred on the Governor and the Secretary of State by the Order-in-Council in relation to matters declared to be of paramount importance or in regard to the maintenance of the efficiency of the public service.

Oral Answers to Questions — KENYA.

DENTAL SURGEONS.

Captain ELLISTON: 31.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, before approving the ordinance recently submitted by the Kenya Legislative Council, he will secure for dental surgeons the same exemption from annual registration fees as has already been conceded to medical practitioners?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: The ordinance has been enacted and has received the assent of the Acting Governor and is in force. I have received a representation from the Dental Association which I am forwarding to the Colony for the consideration of the Government.

Captain ELLISTON: Will the right hon. Gentleman point out the injustice of this differential treatment of professional men, working in similar circumstances and under the same ordinances?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: I should like to have a report from the Governor on the facts before I make any statement.

ETHIOPIA (AGREEMENT).

Captain CUNNINGHAM- REID: 37.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if His Majesty's Government was consulted by the Government of Kenya before the conclusion in September last of the agreement between Kenya and Abyssinia; if he is satisfied that this agreement will prevent armed frontier raids from Abyssinia; and if it has been made clear to the representative of Abyssinia in this country that the maintenance of law and order in Kenya is the concern of His Majesty's Government as well as of the Government of Kenya?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: Negotiations for this agreement were initiated, with the concurrence of His Majesty's Government, at a meeting on the frontier between local representatives of the Governments of Kenya and Ethiopia. The later stages were conducted by His Majesty's representative in Addis Ababa, who, after consultation with His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom, finally ratified the agreement in an exchange of notes. One section of the agreement contains a specific undertaking by the Government of Ethiopia to punish the Gelubba tribe who had instigated the trouble, to disarm them in the future and to post a number of guards so that no further raids would occur. As regards the last part of the question, no communication on the subject has been made to the Ethiopian Minister in London.

Oral Answers to Questions — AVIATION.

AIR EECORDS.

Mr. EVERARD: 39.
asked the Under Secretary of State for Air whether it is proposed to make an attempt to regain the three records recently held by Great Britain?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for AIR (Sir Philip Sassoon): His
Majesty's Government's policy in this regard was fully stated by my Noble Friend in July, and I can add nothing to the statement which he then made and which received the fullest publicity.

MAIL-CARRIER AIRCRAFT.

Mr. WHITESIDE: 40.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air whether it is the intention of the Air Ministry to replace the high-speed mail-carrier aircraft recently damaged; and whether other similar types of aeroplanes are to be constructed?

Sir P. SASSOON: No decision for the future has yet been reached. The cause of the accident is still under investigation.

Mr. WHITESIDE: Will the Under-Secretary bear in mind the fact that the Dutch propose to operate an air-mail service between Amsterdam and Batavia in three and a-half days, while our time to India is seven days, and that Germany and the United States possess transport aircraft capable of cruising at 200 miles an hour, while we do not possess a single experimental aircraft capable of cruising at that speed?

Mr. PERKINS: Is the Under-Secretary aware that as a result of recent discussions on the Continent there is a definite possibility of a reduction in the air forces of the world, and that, as a result, our nearest neighbours have been rapidly expanding their fast air-mail services? Can he give an assurance that Britain will not be left behind?

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member must put that question on the Order Paper.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROYAL AIR FORCE.

DHIBBAN AIR STATION, IRAQ.

Captain HAROLD BALFOUR: 41.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air the expenditure incurred to date on the construction of the new Dhibban air station for the Royal Air Force in Iraq; in what state at present are the buildings; what firm of main contractors are carrying out the work; and whether, in view of the low-lying locality of the site and the fact that the soil is once cultivated alluvial, he is satisfied that this station is likely to be a healthy one for the personnel there quartered?

Sir P. SASSOON: The expenditure actually incurred to date is approximately £13,500. Only the preliminary services, such as a labour camp and temporary water and electric light supplies are at present in hand; the main contracts for the construction of the cantonment have not yet been placed. The site was selected after an exhaustive survey of the district, and on the advice of the responsible medical authorities my Noble Friend is satisfied that it is likely to prove a healthy one.

Captain BALFOUR: May I ask whether it is intended to proceed with the plans for the construction of this air station?

Sir P. SASSOON: Yes.

Mr. MANDER: Have the Government considered the possibility of negotiating with the Iraq Government for the retention of the present air station and so save this quite unnecessary expenditure?

EXPERIMENTAL AIRCRAFT.

Mr. SIMMONDS: 42.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air if, in view of the need for a greater number of experimental types of service aircraft, he can say what steps are being taken to remedy the recent deficiencies?

Sir P. SASSOON: I do not know to what deficiencies my hon. Friend refers, but all service requirements will, of course, be fully taken into account in formulating next year's experimental programme.

Mr. SIMMONDS: Is it not a fact that the Government recently have considerably reduced their orders for aircraft of an experimental type, and will that not seriously prejudice national interests if it should be necessary rapidly to expand the Royal Air Force?

Sir P. SASSOON: That is not the case. For the last four or five years the amount expended on experimental aircraft has been rising every year.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRANSPORT.

MOTOR TRAFFIC (SPEED LIMIT).

Mr. WHITE: 44.
asked the Minister of Transport if it is his intention to introduce legislation to reimpose a speed limit on private motorists?

The MINISTER of TRANSPORT (Mr. Oliver Stanley): I would refer the hon. Member to the answer which I gave on the subject of speed limits on the 9th November to the hon. Member for Bermondsey West (Dr. Salter), of which I am sending him a copy.

Mr. H. WILLIAMS: Could the Minister arrange with the Home Secretary to instruct the police to give more attention to vehicles that are in motion and less to those that are at rest?

Viscountess ASTOR: Would it not be better to have a temperance test for drivers?

Colonel GOODMAN (for Mr. LOVAT-FRASER): 48.
asked the Minister of Transport if, in view of the increasing number of accidents arising from excessive speed, particularly on modern arterial roads, he will consider the introduction of legislation to prohibit the licensing of a motor vehicle for use on a public highway capable of travelling beyond an agreed maximum speed?

Mr. STANLEY: Apart from any other consideration, there are many technical objections to my hon. Friend's suggestion, which would make it impracticable.

MOTOR VEHICLES (SILENCERS).

Sir ARTHUR MICHAEL SAMUEL: 45.
asked the Minister of Transport whether he will consider asking Parliament for powers to extend the provisions of the Road Traffic Act, 1930, so as to render it illegal to manufacture and sell motor vehicles with inefficient silencers?

Rear-Admiral SUETER: 49.
asked the Minister of Transport what steps are at present taken to prevent the sale and use of motor cycles and sports cars with engines which are only partially silenced; and is he aware that the noise produced by partially silenced engines, although preventable, constitutes annoyance to the general public?

Mr. STANLEY: I think that the silencers of some types of motor vehicle might be improved and have already drawn the manufacturers' attention to the matter.

Sir A. M. SAMUEL: Will the Minister ascertain definitely from the manufacturers whether inefficient silencers bring any mechanical advantage to the machinery which will compensate for the
intolerable nuisance caused to a whole neighbourhood?

ROAD ACCIDENTS.

Sir A. M. SAMUEL: 46.
asked the Minister of Transport whether information regarding motor accidents exists in his Department showing the ratio to the total in which owner-drivers have been involved, and/or are responsible as compared with accidents in which the drivers have not been owners of vehicles concerned; and, if such information does exist, is it possible to draw any deduction therefrom in the search for means to reduce motor traffic accidents?

Mr. STANLEY: I have no information on this particular point.

Mr. EDWARD WILLIAMS: 56.
asked the Minister of Transport whether, in view of the continued increase in road accidents, additional practical safety measures are contemplated; and what public works relating to the safety of the roads are in operation or contemplation?

Mr. STANLEY: The subject of road accidents is receiving my close, attention, and every scheme submitted to my Department by local authorities for new roads or road improvements is carefully scrutinised from the point of view of public safety. Information with regard to the progress of the more important road works is given periodically in the Annual Report on the Administration of the Road Fund.

Captain CROOKSHANK: Has the Minister noticed the great increase in accidents since the abolition of the speed limit?

Mr. STANLEY: I have noticed a great increase, unfortunately, in the accidents which have occurred in the third year after the speed limit was abolished.

Colonel GOODMAN (for Mr. LOVAT-FRASER): 47.
asked the Minister of Transport if his attention has been called to the continued increase in the accidents involving omnibuses in the Metropolitan Police area since the time schedules have been shortened; and if he will institute inquiries with a view to seeing that the existing dangerous speeds are discontinued?

Mr. STANLEY: While there has been some increase in the number of accidents involving omnibuses in the Metropolitan Police area, I have no evidence that the new time schedules are responsible. I am, however, considering whether some further analysis of the figures might with advantage be obtained.

ROAD BRIDGES.

Captain STRICKLAND: 50.
asked the Minister of Transport whether the Roads Department of the Ministry is in possession of particulars of the number and situation of all road bridges where the bridge authority have placed notices prohibiting the use of the bridges by vehicles exceeding a specified weight; and, if not, whether he will cause the information to be collected and published so that it may be made available to road users?

Mr. STANLEY: These particulars are not at present in the possession of my Department. The future position in respect to weak bridges arises in connection with the provisions of the Road and Rail Traffic Bill now in another place.

Captain STRICKLAND: Will the Minister take steps to have this information prepared, at a very early date, as it is a great inconvenience to road transport not to know the location of bridges which, in the Minister's opinion, are deemed to be weak?

Mr. STANLEY: There are no valid notices at the present moment with regard to weak bridges. With regard to future notices, it would be more convenient to discuss the matter to-morrow when we deal with a message from another place.

RAILWAYS (ELECTRIFICATION).

Sir PHILIP DAWSON: 52.
asked the Minister of Transport if he has any information as to whether our railways are considering any electrification either of suburban or main-line sections outside the area of the London Passenger Transport Board; and what further steps are to be taken to implement the recommendations as to electrification contained in the Weir Report and that of the Royal Commission on Transport?

Mr. STANLEY: The railway companies assure me that they are continuing to give consideration to this matter, but at
present I have no information with regard to any schemes of main-line electrification which are likely to be proceeded with in the near future.

Mr. DORAN: 53.
asked the Minister of Transport if the recent plans for the electrification of some of their suburban services, submitted to him by the London and North Eastern Railway Company, included the branch to Tottenham and beyond?

Mr. STANLEY: I am informed by the London and North Eastern Railway Company that the schemes for the electrification of their Great Eastern suburban services at present under consideration by them and the Standing Joint Committee set up under the London Passenger Transport Act do not include the line to Tottenham and beyond.

SIGNPOSTS.

Lieut-Colonel SANDEMAN ALLEN: 55.
asked the Minister of Transport if he will consider making regulations to lower all signposts from the existing height, designed to be read by the driver of a stage coach, to a height where they will be visible in the head-lights of a motor car?

Mr. STANLEY: The Departmental Committee on Traffic Signs in their recent report recommend that where there is no reason to the contrary the height above the crown of the road of the lower edge of traffic signs intended for the warning or guidance of vehicular traffic should be 3 feet 6 inches. In towns and other places where signs erected at this height are liable to be obscured it will be necessary to allow a clearance of 6 feet 9 inches. I do not propose to make a regulation on this point but to deal with it by way of a direction under Section 48 of the Road Traffic Act, 1930, requiring highway authorities to have regard to the Committee's recommendation.

Vice-Admiral TAYLOR: Will the Minister also see that the signs are placed at an angle at which they can be read easily? That is very important.

Mr. STANLEY: That is part of the same Committee's recommendations.

Mr. LEVY: Is the Minister also considering the fact that the writing upon the signs should be considerably increased
in size, as there is great difficulty at night in reading the signs?

Mr. STANLEY: Perhaps my hon. Friend will study the report. He will there see the type of writing which is recommended.

OMNIBUS SERVICE, LONDON.

Captain CUNNINGHAM- REID: 57.
asked the Minister of Transport whether the attention of the London Passenger Transport Board has been drawn to the lack of accommodation in omnibuses during the morning peak hours for workers who have to board such omnibuses at the St. John's Wood and Clifton Road stopping places on the Nos. 6 and 60 routes; and whether adequate arrangements will be made for such workers?

Mr. STANLEY: The answer to the first part of the hon. and gallant Member's question is in the affirmative. As to the second part, the Board are inquiring into the position.

CATTLE FERRY, ARLINGHAM.

Mr. PERKINS: 60.
asked the Minister of Transport whether he is aware that the owners of the ferry over the Severn, at Arlingham, Gloucestershire, have discontinued the cattle boat and, as a result, it is impossible for farmers living east of the river to transport their cattle to the markets on the west side of the river; and whether he will make inquiries into the matter with a view to securing the provision of transport facilities for cattle and motor cars?

Mr. STANLEY: I have no knowledge of the cattle ferry at Arlingham, but I am having inquiries made and will communicate the result to the hon. Member.

BANK OF ENGLAND REBUILDING (STREET WIDENINNG).

Mr. HOWARD: 61.
asked the Minister of Transport if he will state what communications have passed between his Department and the City Corporation relative to the widening of Princes Street during the rebuilding of the Bank of England; what has been the result; and whether there is any prospect of the Princes Street frontage being set back at least 6 feet?

Mr. STANLEY: The possibility of securing the widening of Princes Street was discussed between my Department
and the City Corporation some years ago, but having regard to the cost involved the authorities concerned were unable to proceed with the scheme. The discussions led to agreement as to the widening at the corner of Mansion House Street and Princes Street, which has been completed. In addition, the Bank of England have agreed to construct a footpath at the back of the Temple at the Lothbury-Princes Street corner. I do not think there is any prospect of the Princes Street frontage being set back for many years, having regard to the building work already completed.

Mr. HOWARD: Would it not be possible to bring some moral pressure to bear upon the Governors of the Bank of England and ask them as a matter of grace whether they could not set back this pavement 6 feet, seeing that future generations will be considerably impeded, from the traffic point of view, if this building is erected as is proposed?

Mr. STANLEY: In view of the fact that they have just completed the rebuilding of the Bank of England, I am afraid that moral pressure would not be of much avail.

CHELSEA BRIDGE.

Mr. HOWARD: 62.
asked the Minister of Transport whether he will take steps to see that a roundabout, similar to that at Lambeth Bridge, is constructed at the north end of the new Chelsea Bridge, instead of the light signals at present suggested?

Mr. STANLEY: Any suggestions of this nature that might be submitted to me by the London County Council would receive careful consideration, but, as at present advised, I am of opinion that apart from any question of space for a "roundabout," traffic light signals will adequately serve the purpose at much less expense.

Mr. HOWARD: Is it true that communications between the Minister's Department and the London County Council have already taken place and that it was joint action which decided in favour of these light signals? In view of the fact that Lambeth Bridge nearby has a very convenient roundabout and that there is ample space at Chelsea for a roundabout, would it not be better to have a roundabout there?

Mr. STANLEY: I am obliged to my hon. Friend for his information, some of which is inaccurate.

TOLL BRIDGES AND TOLL ROADS.

Captain P. MACDONALD: 63.
asked the Minister of Transport what toll-bridges and toll-roads in Great Britain have been freed during the present calendar year; whether the circular recently issued by him to highway authorities pointing out the facilities available under the Road Traffic Act for the purchase and freeing of tolls is still operative; and whether he can give an assurance that so soon as more funds are available for road improvements he will ensure that an adequate proportion shall be laid aside in order to dispose of the remaning toll-bridges in the country?

Mr. STANLEY: Two toll-bridges have been freed during the present calendar year with assistance of grants from the Road Fund. The circular to which I assume my hon. and gallant Friend refers is still operative, and I shall be prepared to give as favourable consideration as funds from time to time permit to future applications for grants which may be submitted by highway authorities in respect of the acquisition of toll-roads and toll-bridges.

Captain MACDONALD: Will the Minister take steps to implement the pledges given by his predecessors m regard to existing toll-bridges?

Mr. STANLEY: I cannot go further than say that I will give consideration to this matter, in conjunction with other urgent matters submitted to the Depart-men.

TAXIMETER CABS, LONDON (DIALS).

Rear-Admiral SUETER: 73.
asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware that, although repeated complaints have been made during the past two years that many taximeter-cab fare meters with black dials as well as white dials are illegible to passengers owing to the apertures for the fare figures and the figures themselves being too small, the Metropolitan licensing authorities have not yet arranged for the use of meters with more suitable types of dials; and will he instruct the licensing authorities that no illegible dials should be used at all?

The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir John Gilmour): In previous answers it has been explained why it is not possible to require the replacement of the old tye of instrument by newer types. The Commissioner of Police informs me that, in his view, it is not so much a question of the size of the figures or of the apertures on the meters as of their proper illumination. The police continue to give special attention to the question of illumination. During the year ended 31st October last, 35 cases of failure to observe the requirements in this respect were reported for proceedings. In 245 other cases, as a result of inspection, notice was given that the cabs were not to ply for hire until the police were satisfied that proper means of illumination had been provided.

DANGEROUS CHEMICALS (ROAD CONVEYANCE).

Colonel GOODMAN: 76.
asked the Home Secretary if he will take steps to regulate the transport of acids and dangerous chemicals and other materials by road?

Sir J. GILMOUR: The question of applying the provisions of the Petroleum (Consolidation) Act, 1928, to certain dangerous chemicals, with a view to regulating the conditions of their conveyance by road, is at present under careful consideration. The matter is one of considerable complexity, but there will be no avoidable delay in coming to a decision.

Colonel GOODMAN: Has the attention of the right hon. Gentleman been called to a road accident on the Great North Road in which the passengers on a motor coach were severely burned by acid spilled fom carboys which were being carried on a lorry; and does he not think that steps should be taken speedily to restrict or safeguard the carriage of dangerous materials by road?

Sir J. GILMOUR: Yes, Sir. I am aware of the circumstances of that case. One of the officials of the Home Office attended the inquest, and it is arising out of that case that these matters are under consideration.

Mr. L. SMITH: Will the right hon. Gentleman also take into consideration
the fact that this industry is hedged round with many restrictions already?

STATIONARY TRAMCARS.

Colonel GOODMAN (for Mr. LOVAT-FRASER): 43.
asked the Minister of Transport if, in view of the continued toll of death and injury arising from motor vehicles passing stationary tramcars when passengers are boarding or alighting, he will consider legislation to grant powers to local authorities to pass by-laws forbidding the passing of stationary tramcars at recognised stopping places?

Mr. STANLEY: When proposals to this end have been before Committees of Parliament in recent years they have not been approved. While I am not satisfied that there is sufficient ground shown for departing from this attitude, I will bear my hon. Friend's suggestion in mind in my consideration of the special analysis of the causes of accidents which is now before me.

Mrs. COPELAND: Will the hon. Gentleman consider that possibly the fewness of the accidents to pedestrians in foreign countries is due to the fact that if you are run over you have to pay a fine?

Mr. STANLEY: That hardly seems to arise.

Colonel GOODMAN: When considering this question, will the hon. Gentleman take into account that where these by-laws have been passed, in Scottish towns, it has not caused congestion, according to the chief constables, and that the number of accidents of this kind has been reduced?

ELECTRICITY SUPPLIES.

Sir P. DAWSON: 51.
asked the Minister of Transport whether in view of the coming into operation of the grid next year, he proposes to introduce any legislation to deal with and to facilitate distribution, in view of the fact that such legislation is essential to the success of the Central Electricity Board?

Mr. STANLEY: The possibility of improving the organisation of the distribution of electricity is naturally a subject which engages my attention, but I do not
accept my hon. Friend's suggestion that the success of the Central Electricity Board is dependent on further legislation in the matter.

Lord SCONE: 54.
asked the Minister of Transport when electricity will be introduced into the village of Errol?

Mr. STANLEY: The Grampian Electricity Supply Company have informed me that in order to obviate the wayleave difficulties of which my Noble Friend is aware, they have arranged to deviate the route of the proposed electric line to Errol, and my consent to the deviation was given on 1st November. I understand that the company hope to afford a supply in Errol at an early date.

EAMSGATE HARBOUR.

Captain BALFOUR: 58 and 59.
asked the Minister of Transport (1) if he is aware that the public lavatories on the jetties and quays of Ramsgate Harbour have been in a dirty and insanitary state and that for certain periods of the day the water supplies have been cut off; and if he will take steps to have these put into a fit state and to ensure that water is always available;
(2) if he is aware that the landing and embarking slipway of Ramsgate Harbour, for which a charge of 2d. per passenger is levied, has been in a dangerous state through being coated with green slime, and that during last summer two people sustained injury through falling while using the slope; and if he will take steps to ensure that this slipway is cleared of weed and properly maintained in a safe condition in future?

Mr. STANLEY: I am calling for reports with regard to these matters and will communicate with my hon. and gallant Friend when I have received them.

PARCEL POST (SCALE OF CHARGES).

Captain ERSKINE-BOLST: 64.
asked the Postmaster-General if he will consider the revision of the parcel post scale of charges so as to subdivide the amount charged for parcels between two pounds and five pounds?

The ASSISTANT POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Sir Ernest Bennett): I will keep the suggestion of my hon. Friend in mind.

SCOTLAND (HOUSING SCHEME, LANARKSHIRE).

Mr. ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: 67.
asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether, in view of the local representations made to him with regard to the unhealthy and inconvenient site chosen for the new housing scheme in Greengairs, Lanarkshire, he will make inquiries into the matter?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for SCOTLAND (Mr. Skelton): As my hon. Friend is aware, my right hon. Friend has already had inquiries made into this matter, but as the question of the selection of building sites is one within the discretion of local authorities themselves, he is unable to interfere with the decision of the county council. I may say, however, that the selected site has the approval of the county medical officer and that, as regards the question of convenience, it is situated half a mile from the centre of the village?

Oral Answers to Questions — AGRICULTURE.

MUSK RATS.

Lord SCONE: 68.
asked the Minister of Agriculture the areas in which musk rat colonies are known to exist and the number of musk rats estimated to be at liberty throughout the country, together with the steps taken during the summer to exterminate them?

The MINISTER of AGRICULTURE (Mr. Elliot): Musk rats are known to be at large in parts of Shropshire and the counties immediately adjoining, and also in West Sussex and adjacent parts of Surrey and Hampshire. Thirty-six trappers have been employed in searching for and trapping the animals, of which 2,587 have been caught since the passing of the Destructive Imported Animals Act, 1932. During the past six months 295 musk rats have been caught in the Shropshire area and 68 in the West Sussex area. No reliable estimate can be made of the number of musk rats at large in the country.

Mr. ATTLEE: Has the right hon. Gentleman information as to the birth-rate as well as the death-rate?

Mr. ELLIOT: No, Sir, but I am informed that the housing problem presents great difficulties?

Mr. STOURTON: Can my right hon. Friend give an estimate of the number of cockchafers at large in Lancashire?

EGGS AND POULTRY.

Lord SCONE: 69.
asked the Minister of Agriculture if he is in a position to state the results of his negotiations with the producers of eggs and poultry?

Mr. ELLIOT: I am not quiet clear as to the negotiations to which my Noble Friend refers. As announced in the Press early in October, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland and I have constituted Reorganisation Commissions to prepare schemes, applicable respectively in Scotland and in England and Wales, for regulating the marketing of eggs and poultry, and I understand that the Market Supply Committee will review the supply situation as soon as time is available.

Lord SCONE: When is the report likely to be made available?

Mr. ELLIOT: The report of the Reorganisation Commission will not be available for some months yet.

BRITISH ARMY (OAT SUPPLIES).

Mr. PERKINS: 71.
asked the Financial Secretary to the War Office the total quantity of oats bought by his Department from Empire sources?

Mr. WOMERSLEY: The total estimated requirements of oats at home stations during the period of 12 months ended 31st October, 1933, were over 17,000 tons. All supplies were of home origin, except 500 tons, which were of Canadian origin.

Mr. PERKINS: Why was it necessary to buy these oats from Canadian farmers when British farmers are unable to sell their oats?

JUVENILE EMPLOYMENT.

Mr. BRIANT: 74.
asked the Home Secretary if he is now in a position to make a statement as regards the introduction
of a Bill further limiting the hours of employment of young persons?

Sir J. GILMOUR: I have nothing at present to add to my reply to the question asked on this subject by the hon. Member for Central Leeds (Mr. Denman) on Tuesday of last week.

Mr. BRIANT: Can the right hon. Gentleman inform the House if the negotiations with the interested parties have been completed?

Sir J. GILMOUR: There may be some small details to be settled but in the main they have been.

Viscountess ASTOR: Does the Minister remember that it was almost a promise by the Government during the Committee stage of the Children and Young Persons Bill that they would bring in legislation to deal with this matter?

Mr. BRIANT: 75.
asked the Home Secretary if he has any information as to the number of children employed in film studios, and if he will take steps to regulate the conditions of their employment?

Sir J. GILMOUR: I have no information as to the number of children employed in film studios, but inquiry is being made and I will communicate with the hon. Member in due course. The employment of children, whether in film studios or elsewhere, is already regulated by the Children and Young Persons Act, 1933, Part 2.

INDUSTRIAL INSURANCE.

Sir BASIL PETO: 77.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the Government intend to introduce legislation enacting the 14 recommendations of the Report of the Committee on Industrial Insurance, Command Paper 4376; and whether they propose to take any action based on the recommendation in paragraph 5 that more substantial remedial measures are called for in order to secure to the assuring public an adequate return for the premium income contributed by the industrial classes, which rose between 1920 and 1930 from £.36,000.000 to £54,000,000 per annum?

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Hore-Belisha): I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply
which I gave on 9th November to the hon. and gallant Member for the Isle of Wight (Captain P. Macdonald).

Sir B. PETO: May I call the hon. Gentleman's attention to the latter part of my question and ask him is he aware that more than half of the premium income accrues to these insurance companies every year and that the more depressed the working classes are by unemployment the larger the revenue of the companies?

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: I must thank my hon. Friend for calling my attention to the latter part of the question. The answer to it is the answer to which I have referred.

Determinations by the Birmingham Public Assistance Authority on applications for Transitional Payments.


Period.
——
Total number of applications.
Allowed at maximum benefit rates.
Allowed at lower rates.
Needs of applicants held not to justify payment.


4th July, 1932—
Initial applications
7,545
1,950
2,884
2711


1st Oct., 1932.
Renewals and Revisions.
34,687
13,102
19,695
1,890


3rd July, 1933—
Initial applications
3,940
1,159
1,560
1,221


7th Oct., 1933,*
Renewals and Revisions.
30,612
13,196
16,021
1,395


Figures are not yet available for any later period.

CHINA (KIDNAPPED BRITISH SUBJECTS).

Mr. MABANE: 13.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware that it was in June, 1932, that the Reverend H. S. Ferguson was kidnapped by Chinese bandits near the Tibetan border; if he has yet been released; and, if not, what action is being taken to secure his release?

Sir J. SIMON: Mr. Ferguson was captured on or about the 12th May, 1932, by a communist band at Chengyangkuan, in North Anhui. I regret that Mr. Ferguson's release has not yet been effected, despite the fact that the case has been constantly kept before the Chinese authorities. A report has been received that Mr. Ferguson was killed in the middle of September, 1932, but it has been impossible to obtain any confirmation of this.

Mr. MABANE: Can the right hon. Gentleman say which Chinese authorities?

Oral Answers to Questions — UNEMPLOYMENT (TRANSITIONAL PAYMENTS, BIBMINGHAM).

Mr. SMEDLEY CROOKE: 78.
asked the Minister of Labour the number of applications for transitional benefit under the means test that have been received in Birmingham in the three months ended 31st October; how many were granted benefit; how many were refused; and how the figures compare with the corresponding period of 1932?

The MINISTER of LABOUR (Sir Henry Betterton): As the reply includes a table of figures I will, if I may, circulate a statement in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the statement:

Is it the Nanking Government to which he refers?

Sir J. SIMON: Perhaps my hon. Friend will put down that question. My impression is that it would be so, but I do not want to commit myself without being quite sure.

Mr. MABANE: 14.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware that it was in March, 1932, that Mr. Edwards, a lighthouse keeper, was kidnapped by Chinese near Swatow; if he has yet been released; and, if not, what action is being taken to secure the release of this man?

Sir J. SIMON: Mr. Edwards was kidnapped on the 27th February, 1932, by Chinese Communists. Despite frequent representations to the Chinese authorities, his release has not yet been effected. Reports of his death have been received, but, owing to the disturbed condition of the district, it has not been possible to
obtain confirmation of the reports. One of the kidnappers was recently reported to have been recognised by Mr. Edwards' servant: he has been placed under arrest. The Chinese authorities have been urged either to secure Mr. Edwards' release or to obtain evidence of his death and punish his murderers.

Mr. MAXTON: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us what special reasons Chinese Communists have for capturing clergymen and lighthouse-keepers?

Mr. H. WILLIAMS: Has my right hon. Friend received any communications from the Labour party asking for assistance?

Oral Answers to Questions — NEW MEMBER SWORN.

George William Rickards, esquire, for County of York, West Riding (Skipton Division).

Oral Answers to Questions — MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.

That they have agreed to—

Superannuation (Ecclesiastical Commissioners and Queen Anne's Bounty) Bill, without Amendment.

Road and Rail Traffic Bill, with

Amendments.

Amendments to—

Firearms and Imitation Firearms (Criminal Use) Bill [Lords], without Amendment.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROAD AND RAIL TRAFFIC BILL.

Lords Amendments to be considered To-morrow, and to be printed. [Bill 174.]

AGRICULTURAL MARKETING ACT, 1933.

3.39 p.m.

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Dr. Burgin): I beg to move,
That the Bacon (Import Regulation) Order, 1933, dated the seventh day of November, nineteen hundred and thirty-three, made by the Board of Trade under the Agricultural Marketing Act, 1933, a copy of which was presented to this House on the eighth day of November, nineteen hundred and thirty-three, be approved.
The House will recall that imports of bacon and ham from foreign countries have been controlled since November of last year. In that month, owing to the collapse of the meat market, emergency arrangements were made for controlling the importation of all kinds of meat, and at the same time it was arranged to reduce the importation of bacon and hams by 15 per cent. The Government announced on the 19th December last that they accepted in principle the recommendations of the Reorganisation Commission for pigs and pig products, generally known as the Lane Fox Commission. The basis of those recommendations was that in order to establish the home bacon industry on a firm basis of annual contracts, the total supply of bacon and hams should be limited in the first instance to a quantity of rather over 10,500,000 cwts. per annum. This was estimated to be the average supply available in the years 1825–30. It was decided to continue the reduction of foreign imports gradually so as to reach the Lane-Fox level in the autumn when the first home contracts could be made and the Ministry of Agriculture were able to obtain the assent of the bacon exporting countries to the successive reductions.
The reductions were calculated on the general assumption that the home supply would, when the contracts were made, be found to be in the neighbourhood of 2,000,000 cwts. In fact, when the contracts were actually made the total home supply was found to be no less than 3,000,000 cwts. per annum. In those circumstances the Government had no option but to effect a corresponding reduction in the imports of foreign countries. They endeavoured to secure this by voluntary arrangement. Unfortunately, certain countries, and in
particular the country chiefly affected, namely, Denmark, which has a treaty right to 62 per cent, of the total importation from foreign countries, could not see their way to accept so sudden and drastic a reduction by way of voluntary agreement. I should like to make clear to the House that there is no sort of complaint against the attitude of the Danish Government, for throughout the period of voluntary restriction that Government has helped His Majesty's Government in every possible way, but they did not feel, if I may interpret their attitude, that they could impose upon their farmers a reduction of the magnitude required without the sanction of a compulsory order made on our side. One or two other countries demurred, and therefore it became necessary for the Board of Trade to exercise the powers which they possess under Section 1 of the Agricultural Marketing Act of the present Session.
The Order which is before the House was accordingly made by the President of the Board of Trade on the 7th November. The Order is of the simplest character, and, as hon. Members will observe, it consists of a preamble, 11 numbered paragraphs and a schedule. Paragraph 1 applies the prohibition. Paragraph 2 shows by reference to the schedule the countries which are affected. They are Argentina, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Poland and Dantzig, Sweden, United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Paragraph 3, to which I call the attention of the House, provides that if imports from another country exceed the rate of 400 cwt. a week, they shall automatically come within the terms of the prohibition. Paragraph 4 provides for publication of the fact in the "Board of Trade Journal." Paragraph 5 makes the machinery of the Customs Consolidation of 1876, Section 42, applicable. Hon. Members will recollect that that is the Section dealing with prohibited goods. Paragraph 6 makes it clear that the licence creates no monopoly, that a licence is revocable at any time, and that the Board of Trade may grant it on such terms and conditions as they think proper to the importer. Paragraph 7 shows that the permitted import can take place either under a licence or by means of an
approved certificate granted by an exporting Government. Paragraph 8 gives the Commissioners of Customs power to decide questions as to the country of origin. Paragraph 9 deals with transhipment, and paragraphs 11 and 12 are definitions and title.
The actual quantities will be fixed from time to time. Under the existing arrangements the total importation from foreign countries in the period from the 10th November, 1933, to the 28th February, 1934, will be a little over 1,900,000 cwt. That quantity is at present divided among the several countries on an agreed basis, but the allocation is provisional only and is subject to further discussion with the countries concerned. The House will notice that there is no definite allocation of quantities among the various exporting countries merely because the matter is under consideration and some of the quantities allotted are merely provisional. The House will wish to know how far this re-arrangement of the sources from which bacon is to be obtained will affect distribution and consumption. It is inevitable that a change in the sources of supply of bacon which this Order enforces must to some extent have an effect upon the existing channels of distribution. That aspect of the matter has received and will continue to receive the closest attention of the Board of Trade and of the sub-committee dealing specifically with bacon and hams of the Meat Advisory Committee of which Lord Linlithgow is chairman. Representatives of the distributors of bacon are included on that subcommittee.
So far as imported bacon is concerned, there is in existence a gentleman s agreement to which the distributors are party, and the object of that agreement is to avoid as far as possible any drastic changes in existing channels of distribution of imported bacon due to the absorption by one distributor of more than a fair share of the restricted supply. The Government trust that the trade will continue to work loyally in the spirit of this agreement and will assist, if experience shows that it can be improved, in bringing about the improvements desired. The Order which the House is now asked to approve will necessitate considerable changes in the sources from which dis-
tributors draw their supplies of bacon, but the Government have every confidence that those concerned in the distributive trade and the mechanism of that trade will be adjusted as rapidly as possible to meet the changed circumstances; and the Government rely on having the full support of the trade in carrying through their plan.
So far as the consumer is concerned, the Board of Trade, in settling the terms of any import Order, must among other considerations have regard to the interests of the consumer of the products to which the Order relates. Bacon imports have to be regulated row because without that regulation the reorganisation of the bacon industry under pigs and bacon marketing schemes cannot be brought about or cannot be maintained. Imports have to be regulated to the extent to which is is necessary to make those schemes work. The Government are not aiming at establishing any definite price level for bacon, or of maintaining it at that level by juggling with supplies. The policy of the Government is to stabilise supplies in a definite manner, and the figure is based on the calculations of the Lane Fox Commission on the basis of a normal supply. There is a Market Supply Committee whose business it will be to examine the figure having regard to all considerations, including the interests of the consumer. It is the confident belief that a more or less steady price level will result. The House is asked to approve the Order in order to carry out a policy of which it has already itself approved. The Order is necessary in the circumstances which I have outlined, and I ask approval for it.

3.51 p.m.

Mr. T. WILLIAMS: As usual, the Parliamentary Secretary was not only perfectly lucid but, as always in the past, he almost converted those of us who sit on these benches, and I believe that he nearly converted himself, to the belief that the policy he is advocating is the right one. I have heard him make some marvellous Free Trade speeches, and I have never heard arguments submitted by any opponent of Free Trade which could undermine the arguments of the hon. Gentleman when he was still a Free Trader. Now, to the hon. Gentleman's credit, he can justify either regulation,
control, Protection, or any sort of bargaining, just as clearly and lucidly as he used to be able to justify the system of Free Trade. We all appreciate the lucidity of the hon. Gentleman, and I think he is a very apt student of the honourable profession to which he is 'attached. What the hon. Gentleman, and also the Minister of Agriculture, seem to imagine, however, is that there is no alternative to the simple process of organising scarcity. We regret that the Minister of Agriculture should have ignored some of the fundamental recommendations of the Pig and Bacon Commission. The Parliamentary Secretary said they had accepted the Commission's recommendations in principle. I think I shall be able to show that what they have done is to accept those parts of the Commission's report which satisfy their purpose and ignore those parts not in accord with their desires. Paragraph (b) of the Order states:
that without an Order under that Section the effective organisation and development of the said branches of the agricultural industry in the United Kingdom under such scheme as aforesaid cannot be brought about or maintained.
By this Order, and action taken during the past several months for the restriction of supplies, the right hon. Gentleman satisfies us, at all events, that this is the only policy of the Government, and that they have never for a moment considered the possibility, since large supplies of bacon at very cheap prices are available, of establishing a board which would purchase those supplies, and provide the requisite machinery for distribution; and if, in the process of buying cheaply, they slightly increase prices so as to enable them to help the farmers, they could build new places to increase home-produced supplies. They never seem to have given a single thought to that side of the question. We have 2,500,000 people unemployed, and very few of them ever have an opportunity of purchasing bacon even at cheap prices. Instead of deliberately organising a scarcity of supplies, is it beyond the wit of the Government to consider the possibility of increasing imports of those commodities which are very cheap, and distributing them among the unemployed and the poorest of the poor? While paragraph (b) of the Order refers to the need for reorganisation, it seems
to me that Section 1, Sub-section (3) of the Act has had little or no consideration, despite the reference made by the Parliamentary Secretary. It says:
In deciding whether to make an Order under this Section, and in settling the terms
and so forth, they are to have regard to the interests of the consumers. In view of what has happened during the past summer, and is happening now, they do not seem to have given a lot of consideration to the consumer. Later the same sub-section states that they are to have regard to
the effect which the regulation of the importation of that product into the United Kingdom is likely to have upon commercial relations between the United Kingdom and other countries.
I think I shall be able to show that not only has the consumer been disregarded but that our trading relations with other countries have been dangerously disturbed. While the right hon. Gentleman said some time ago that the time had now arrived when it was not a question of using the pruning knife but the hatchet, it seems to me that he has been wielding the hatchet during the summer, and is wielding it now during the winter, in a way not only to disturb the price level but to impose a terriffic burden upon would-be consumers of bacon drawn from the lower ranks of society. Efficient organisation we are anxious to see of course, and wherever we can help the farmer to help himself without adversely affecting the consumer we are anxious to do so. Where a real economic price which is as fair to the producer as to the consumer can be stabilised it is part of the Labour party's policy to bring that about, but merely to wield the hatchet so as to put off the lower layers of society as consumers of bacon seems to be a policy which in the end will defeat itself.
At long last farmers have been taught, largely by the right hon. Gentleman and his predecessor, Dr. Addison, that their ultimate prosperity lies in co-operation. On page 11 of their report the Reorganisation Commission enumerate the many weaknesses in the agricultural industry in this country. On page 17 they declare that if home production is to expand, then certain other things will have to be done; and on page 18 they definitely state what safeguards the Minister ought to put in hand. They say regulation of
imports is necessary, but that it is most necessary to safeguard the consumer and other public interests. On page 23, when referring to a quota, they make this statement:
The effect of a quota in the present condition of our supply will be to reduce the quantity of bacon available for purchase, and, therefore, precaution must be taken to ensure that the whole of the reduced supply is forthcoming.
What has the Minister done? I think I shall be able to show that he has not only not safeguarded the consumer, but that he has failed to take such steps as will ensure that the restricted imports are going to be met by increased supplies in this country. The Order with which we are now dealing not only justifies what the Minister wants to do in the future, but justifies and confirms all that he has done in the past. That is why we should like to examine the way in which he has been using the hatchet in regard to our imports of bacon. In the first place, he applies a restriction of approximately 17 per cent., and the result of that restriction was to be seen early in August this year. In October, 1932, the price of imported Danish bacon was 52s. per cwt. The "News-Chronicle" which, unfortunately, many Liberals have deserted, stated on 11th August this year that in London on 10th August the wholesale price of Danish bacon rose by 6s. a cwt., and was then 84s. per cwt. The result was that the British housewife paid on the average about 3d. per lb. more for her bacon than she would pay if there were no quota restrictions. That seems to indicate that the right hon. Gentleman, in the first place, failed to pay due regard to the interest of the consumer. Since August we have witnessed a continuous increase in the price of foreign bacon until it has reached about 98s. per cwt.

The MINISTER of AGRICULTURE (Mr. Elliot): What is it to-day?

Mr. WILLIAMS: I understand that to-day it is somewhere about 91s.

Mr. ELLIOT: Are you referring to official figures or figures in the Press?

Mr. WILLIAMS: I am going to refer to what I regard as authoritative sources in a moment. I said that the price in October, 1932, of imported Danish bacon was 52s. per cwt. As a result of restrictions plus farmers withholding supplies
hoping for enhanced prices, the shortage was very acute at certain periods during this year, so much so that figures given in a Written Answer to a question this week showed that the price in March was l0d. per lb., in June 11 ½d. and in October 1s. 1¼d. Therefore from March to October the price had increased, according to the hon. Gentleman opposite, by 3¼d. a lb. Here is a very recent document, an advertisement by George Bowles, Nicholls, and Company, Limited—I do not know that I ought to advertise the firm without leave—but this was on 11th November. This is what they said:
Bacon.—Market officially advanced as follows: Irish, 3s.; Danish, Swedish and Polish, 4s.; Latvian, Lithuanian and Canadian, 5s.; Dutch, 7s. to 9s.; all up. This is the direct result of the cut in supplies. The advance is moderate and reasonable, in face of the lighter supplies, although, of course, it must be passed straight along to the consumer.
That was on 11th November, so that prices are constantly on the up-grade.

Mr. ELLIOT: I am sure the hon. Member will not fail to realise that this advance is much below the price of 98s., of which he has spoken.

Mr. WILLIAMS: The right hon. Gentleman replied to a question of mine on Monday. These are the figures he himself gave to me. I am sure if I quote any figure at all it will be one drawn from official sources. I shall certainly try to avoid making any mis-statement of fact on this question. I asked the President of the Board of Trade on Monday
the average wholesale and retail prices for imported and home-produced bacon for each month during the present year."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 13th November, 1933; col. 571,.]
The Parliamentary Secretary, in reply, gave the prices of Danish bacon from January to October last, ranging between 67s. to 68s., 78s. 9d., 98s. and 88s. 6d. per cwt. in October. Those are not figments of my own imagination, but figures produced by the Board of Trade. I was interested in the reply which was given by the President of the Board of Trade yesterday to the hon. Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Mander) who asked the right hon. Gentleman:
If he is aware of the recent increase in the price of bacon; and whether it is proposed to refer the matter to the Food Council for consideration?
The President of the Board of Trade replied:
There was an increase in the wholesale price of certain classes of bacon last week, but the movement on the whole has been in the downward direction since the beginning of September. In these circumstances, I see no occasion for a special reference to the Food Council."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 14th November, 1933; col. 746;.]
In September, according to the right hon. Gentleman, the price was 98s. per cwt. and in October it was 88s. 6d., but by 11th November according to George Bowles, Nicholls and Company, Limited, the price was anything up from 3s. to 7s. a cwt., and it seems to me that the reply yesterday rather missed the point, when we compare the price of Danish bacon now with that of nine months ago. As the result of the direct action taken by the Minister of Agriculture and the President of the Board of Trade, they have lifted the price paid to Danish farmers from 50s. odd to 80s. odd per cwt. I happen to have been in Copenhagen in August this year, when the price reached 88s. 6d. per cwt., and in consultation with the chiefs of the co-operative exporters, I put the plain, blunt question to them: "What do you think, on the basis of present food prices, is the real economic price to the Danish farmer? What would be a fair, reasonable price?" and I was informed that 70s. per cwt. would satisfy them.

Mr. HERBERT WILLIAMS: In London?

Mr. T. WILLIAMS: Yes, but we insist on paying them 88s. per cwt. "Why," I asked, "should you complain if we give you 18s. more than you really need?" The reply was that they must not look to these transactions, but must look to the future, for they were hoping that Denmark would export for many years ahead. If the British consumer is called upon to pay a price in excess of his income, several millions of the poorest people in the country will no longer be bacon consumers. Consumption will go down, and, obviously, purchases will decrease, and the second state, both for British people and Danish farmers, will be actually worse than the first. So that from the point of view of the consumer, one section has been ignored by the right hon. Gentleman. We have not safeguarded the consumer in this country,
nor have we safeguarded our relations with Denmark.
I come the right hon. Gentleman's acceptance of the Reorganisation Commission's recommendations in principle. The Commission declared that for a period of six years our annual consumption of bacon ranged about 10,700,000cwt., but for 1931 the imports were abnormal, and we found ways and means of consuming about 13,250,000 cwt. Said the right hon. Gentleman, "That is too much bacon for the British people to consume. Therefore, we have got to devise ways and means of cutting down available supplies." To cut down available supplies they recommended a figure. They said, "We must no longer eat 13,250,000 cwt.; 10,000,000 cwt. is sufficient. Therefore, the Government must see to it that imports and home produce meet that figure." I should like to ask the hon. Gentleman as a doctor whether we are counselled to eat a small quantity of bacon for health reasons, or for just what reason are we to eat less bacon in future? Is it simply that we can only afford to eat a lot of bacon as long as we are paying 110s. a cwt. for it? Apparently, we are counselled not to eat much bacon if we can buy it at 58s. a cwt., but as long as we pay 110s. a cwt. for it, it is quite right for consumers to eat as much as they can get hold of. That seems to be the policy of the Government. The right hon. Gentleman will probably tell us something about that.
The second phase of these restructions has got a clear relation to the right hon. Gentleman's anticipations of the home product. The farmers know that the Ministry is going to take further action, so that they withhold from the market available home supplies. The shortage becomes acute and the price increases. The moment, therefore, the bacon factories offer enhanced prices to home producers, large stocks of bacon are hurled at them. The right hon. Gentleman issued a statement in which he said that home production was going to exceed all his expectations and, therefore, they would have to provide opportunities for the absorption of home-produced bacon. The Minister, therefore, proceeds to persuade the President of the Board of Trade that nothing short of a further restriction of 20 per cent, will do.
What is the right hon. Gentleman's calculation? He says that because home producers of bacon enter into contracts to supply 620,000 pigs for a period, he calculates that three such periods will show such an increase in home produce that it will raise approximately 1,250,000 cwt. in excess of the normal produce of this country, namely, 1,750,000 cwt., or 3,000,000 cwt. in all. The Reorganisation Commission calculate an increase of 10 per cent. in home output for each four months. My figures and my calculations may be wrong, but the recommendations of the Commission are clear. Our home production is approximately 1,750,000 cwt. They therefore recommend that contracts be made on the basis of a 10 per cent. increase for the four months, that is, 30 per cent. increase in 12 months. That would amount to something slightly in excess of 500,000 cwt., but the right hon. Gentleman has said that because all those pigs have been sent on to the factory owners at once, the increase is not to be 500,000 cwt. in 12 months, but 1,250,000 cwt., and he proceeds to restrict in accordance with that calculation.
What does his last Order mean? It means that, on the basis of the restrictions for the last quarter of this year, which are from approximately 3,000,000 cwt. to 2,000,000 cwt., or a reduced import of 1,000,000 cwt., he will, assuming that the same percentage of restriction is to be made, restrict imports by 4,000,000 cwt. He will tell me, of course, that the Order is revocable, and that he can reduce the restrictions, but, on the basis of the present restrictions, 4,000,000 cwt. of bacon will be excluded from this country. I will assume that the calculations of the Royal Commission are correct, and that we increased our output by just over 500,000 cwt. in 12 months. Therefore, there will be just over 3,500,000 cwt. less bacon supplies available for consumers in this country, or 1,000,000 cwt. less than was recommended by the Commission itself. That can only reflect itself in the prices paid by consumers.
There is another unfortunate effect of this Order. In April, 1933, we entered into a trade agreement with Denmark. All agreements carry with them a spirit as well as a letter. The present Order seems to have violated the spirit of that
Treaty when in Clauses 1 to 3 it refers to our trading relations with foreign countries. It is true, as the Parliamentary Secretary stated, that the Government sought a voluntary agreement, but Denmark refused to enter into it, saying that it was impossible suddenly to reduce their import of bacon to this country without previous notice having been given and for them to accommodate themselves to the new situation. They truly said, through their national spokesman, that when they entered into the agreement in April of this year they thought that their imports of pig meat would remain pretty much the same as hitherto. The figures recorded in the agreement were 62 per cent, of foreign imports. They never contemplated for a moment that the restriction would be so damaging as that which we are now imposing upon them.
Some of their spokesmen have expressed themselves in very definite terms. For instance, the "Financial News" of this country for 30th October, 1933, commenting upon this Order, declared:
Naturally, the Danes, who have been supplying over half our bacon and will now have to cut down their imports by nearly 1.000,000 cwt., are roused to indignation. It is true that when, under the Commercial Treaty signed six months ago, they undertook to take 80 per cent, of their coal imports from the United Kingdom, they exposed themselves to this procrustean fate, since they failed to secure a minimum quota for their bacon imports to this country as they did for eggs and butter. Hut with the best will in the world the Danes cannot buy as many of our goods if we pay them soma £2,500,000 less for their bacon. And how shall there be good will if we deal so sudden and deadly a blow at their principal industry?
That seems to be a perfectly legitimate observation, just as though it came from the mouth of the Danish people themselves. To say that the right hon. Gentleman is merely disturbing Denmark by these hatchet blows is to put it very mildly indeed. We regard this as a serious action on the part of the Minister. We are anxious, as we know him to be, to get farmers to co-operate, but this is a very poor substitute for a well-thought-out policy. We think that the restrictions have been too precipate, and that they are calculated in the end not to get the farmer in this country blessed but to get the whole situation cursed.
We are convinced that the right hon. Gentleman is disturbing tremendously
trade relations with other countries. I am certain that the next coal exporters from Hull and elsewhere who enter into discussions with our Danish friends in regard to their 80 per cent, purchases of coal, imposed upon them by the trade agreement, will find the amount considerably below the supply being taken at this moment. If we disturb their trade enormously, as we have done by this restriction, we must expect that the reaction will express itself at our coal pits and our mines at home, where more, and not fewer, miners will be out of work.
We think that there is one thing that the Minister of Agriculture might have done with his progressive ideas. He might have persuaded the Government in a certain direction, and the President of the Board of Trade, who in 1933, is a different person from the one I used to know in 1928, would have gone a long way towards supporting him. Even Viscount Astor has come to our assistance in stating that, if the quota system must be applied, it ought to be accompanied by import boards. There is no reason why we should compel bacon producers to sell cheap bacon to Germany or somewhere else, thus reducing the cost of living in those places and enabling their employers to reduce wages, as a result of which Germans, Frenchmen or somebody else will undercut producers in this country. We think that that bacon ought to have been available for us, and that we ought to have made use of it. We ought to have provided a machine whereby we could have continued to purchase, and to have provided a fund out of the purchases and the sale of imported bacon and whereby we could, perhaps, have helped the British producer of bacon to tide over the transitional period from the production of 1,750,000 cwts. to 3,000,000 cwts.
We are anxious that more people should be employed on the land, and to assist efficient production wherever we can. We also want to see that the interests of the consumer are safeguarded, and we certainly want to preserve good relations with foreign countries. If we Oppose this Order, it is not because we are not anxious to help agriculture, but because we prefer that trade with friendly Powers, instead of being sterilised, should rapidly and freely expand with spending power in the hands
of the right people. We feel obliged to enter the Division Lobby against this Order because of the precipitate action taken by the right hon. Gentleman, and his failure to produce a policy. He will go down to history, not so much as a Minister of Agriculture, but as the slasher of somebody else's rasher.

4.25 p.m.

Sir PERCY HARRIS: The hon. Gentleman who has just sat down has been moved to indignation. The history of the last 12 months indicates that the interesting experiment in which the Ministry of Agriculture have been engaged will not be without value if it has taught Members of the Government that it is not easy to embark upon experiments of this kind without all sorts of quite unexpected reactions in various directions. I might describe the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade as the whipping boy of the Government. He is always put up for these little jobs, because he does them so sweetly, like someone offering a little child a harmless and ordinary dose of medicine that will have no effect upon the patient. I think that the Minister of Agriculture will agree that the policy of the Government is having repercussions upon the industry of agriculture and upon the taxpayer the end of which cannot be foreseen, but which may be disastrous. The consumer certainly is already seriously affected.
I know that there are many interpretations of the result of a certain by-election. I have no doubt that the fear of war and a desire for peace were big factors, but I am credibly informed that the price of bacon had a very big influence upon the interest taken in it in working-class homes. I know that in the East End of London the unemployed, who have shown exemplary patience under the greatest difficulty, are aroused at the present time to anger in a way that is far more serious than at any time in the last three or four years. The ordinary public understands about these things, because they read the papers. In the East End of London they are in close contact with the docks where in many cases the breadwinner has already been thrown out of work by the policy of the Government. When he comes home and the housewife complains about the price of bacon, naturally their indignation is aroused. The
patience that they have exercised for so long is becoming exhausted. I am talking about what is actually happening.
The effect of this policy is naturally being felt at the docks. There are not the quantities coming in from Denmark and the Northern States. Not only that, but the same amount of bacon is not being handled by the distributors. I heard this afternoon, from one of the largest dealers in the market in London, that one of the results of the decrease of the consumption of bacon, as the result of higher prices, has not only been fewer men employed in the docks but fewer employed in the distribution, smoking and other branches of this very important article of food. Naturally there is indignation. The Government will have to bring forward far stronger arguments than those which the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade deigned to bring forward to justify this new policy.
Then there is another matter. The taxpayer has to pay. It would not be in order for me to follow that point, but I understand that a subsidy is now to be given to the bacon curers in order to compensate them for the gross miscalculation of the quantities that are being poured in upon them, as a result of the Government's policy. I agree with the hon. Gentleman when he says that this House has a great responsibility towards agriculture, and I should regret it if anything I said were to suggest that the Government had been justified in ignoring that responsibility. The responsibility is there, but I would remind the House and the Government that the depression in agriculture is not confined to this country, but is universal throughout the world, and I am satisfied that we shall never find a solution for it except by co-operation between the States of the world in dealing with such problems as currency, distribution, and, if you like, intelligent regulation. But this is one-sided; it is merely an attempt to do something in a hurry under pressure as a result of this report. The authors of the report are, no doubt, very able and competent people, who have studied the problem, but I venture to say that they have looked at it from a very one-sided angle.
It may be said with reason—and I am sure it will be said by my hon. Friend the Member for South Croydon (Mr. H. Williams): Why should not the
consumer eat English bacon? I agree; I am all in favour of advertising and stimulating the consumption of home produce, because that is better for the consumer on the whole, and it is good for our agriculture. But it is a question of price. As regards price, bacon is one of the most sensitive articles of any in the country. Anyone who will take the trouble to make inquiries, either of the distributors or of the public, will find that price is the great factor. A rise in the price of bread does not affect consumption. People go on buying bread. They may resent the rise in price, but the number of loaves coming into the house remains pretty stable. Bacon, however, which is really the luxury of the ordinary working-class home, is most sensitive to price, and the only result of bringing the price above a certain level is that consumption immediately goes off. I am told to-day by one of the greatest experts in the trade that already, within the last few months, the habits of many working-class families have been changed. Certainly, as a result of the increase in price, the distributor is selling more in value—that is to say, he is selling the same quantity at a higher price; but the consumption goes down like a barometer as the price goes up, and substitutes are coming into use, like coined beef, cheese, and other articles of diet. I think the Minister of Agriculture will bear me out in that. Therefore, to embark upon this new policy in a hurry, without adequate inquiry as to the effect on the consumer, seems to be disastrous. It might be possible, at a time of great prosperity, when there was no unemployment and when wages were high, to seduce the consumer from buying the cheap, good quality bacon and persuade him to use instead home produce, but at a time of unemployment, when wages are low, the only result is to react on the actual consumption.
I am going to be bold and refer to the effect on Denmark. I know that I shall be laying myself open to the suggestion that I am a friend of every country but my own, but I am not speaking as a friend of Denmark, but as a friend of Great Britain, looking upon Denmark as one of our best and most friendly customers, who is prepared and willing by tradition and history to trade with us. This country is practically the sole consumer, or at any rate the main consumer,
of Danish bacon, and, as this excellent report of the Reorganisation Committee points out, the Danish bacon-curing industry has been built up to meet the requirements of Great Britain, having no other outlet. What must the effect be? I have heard a lot during the last few months in our Debates about the policy of retaliation—that, if you want to get good conditions from a country, you must have the tariff weapon. Now we are using the butt end of that weapon. We are using the tariff weapon, not to encourage trade with another country, but to stop it. The inevitable result, as my hon. Friend rightly points out, will be a decreased demand from Denmark for our coal.
It was a great triumph for the President of the Board of Trade that he was able to come down and say that, as the result of his apostasy, of his departure from his Free Trade policy, he had been able to make good trade bargains with Denmark, Argentina and so on. Now he is giving up the whole thing. He has to acknowledge that the Minister of Agriculture has been too strong for him, and has robbed him of his instrument, because the Danish producer, who is so seriously affected, who depends so much on the prosperity of his bacon industry, has to recognise one of two things: Either the consumer will have to go on giving double the price for his product, which will, of course, have reactions ultimately on the demand, or he will have to look for other markets for his product; and, in looking for other markets, as I am told they are already doing, the tendency will be to buy their manufactured goods, not from Great Britain, which previously was their principal source of supply, but from Germany and other continental countries. [Interruption.] My hon. Friend who interrupts me—I know the purpose of his interruption—says that Denmark has not in the past bought from us so much as she has sold to this country; but the policy of my right hon. Friend is to change that, and his purpose is not being helped by this unfortunate action of the Government. In all these things we should not be narrow-minded; we should look at the general well-being of the country; but, while I agree that the Government are justified in trying to reorganise agriculture, I am satisfied that in trying to help agriculture they are
doing the right thing in the wrong way. They are trying to arrive at the results which have been brought about in Denmark by 25 years of sound policy in six months by bad action and a bad policy. The Danish bacon industry, the Danish butter industry, and the Danish egg industry were built up by 25 years of co-operation—co-operation from below, guided directly by the State. We are trying, without co-operation with the farmers, without the reorganisation of agriculture, to build from above, and the inevitable result is the present chaos and the tremendous rise in prices.
Of course, the conditions are different in Denmark. In Denmark, milk is largely a by-product, and the pigs are fed largely on the skim milk left over from the production of butter. As long as it pays England better to sell its milk in a liquid condition, obviously the pig industry must necessarily be a comparatively minor industry, unable to compete as regards price with the commodities supplied by Denmark. As far as I am concerned, I should feel justified in going down to any working-class constituency and defending a scheme of this kind if it were really in the permanent interest of agriculture and did not cause undue hardship to the consumer; but I am satisfied that this particular scheme does neither the one thing nor the other. It imposes hardships on the consumer, while at the same time bringing our agriculture into the chaotic condition in which it is at present. I am sorry that the Government have made this departure, and I hope that the President of the Board of Trade will explain how he can reconcile it with his new policy of reconciliation with other countries, of tariff negotiation, and of using the tariff system to lower tariffs. At the same time, I hope that the Minister of Agriculture will explain how this new policy can be carried out without undue cost to both the taxpayer and the distributor. I am glad to support the opposition to this Order.

4.42 p.m.

Mr. H. WILLIAMS: The hon. Baronet who has just sat down commenced by describing to us one of his hypothetical constituents, who, apparently, was grumbling very severely because her husband, a bacon dock-worker, was now without employment, and she could not afford to buy bacon. I am going to sug-
gest to the hon. Baronet that his illustration was hypothetical. He went on to say that what we want is international co-operation in this matter. There are not more out of work than before any action was taken in this matter, and the aggregate imports of a great many commodities have increased as a result of the stimulus of tariffs. Imports of raw materials have increased very materially, as anybody knows who has studied the figures. But the hon. Baronet says he wants international co-operation in this matter. Long words like that cover a multitude of sins and a great deal of ignorance. Is the hon. Baronet prepared, as the result of international co-operation, to see prices go up? He never told us that. If he is not, what does it all mean? It means precisely nothing. It is very fine to tell hypothetical constituents that international co-operation will solve the problem, but in practice they have got to come down at some stage or other to precise figures and a precise policy. I would remind the hon. Baronet that a very substantial number of the unemployed people in this country are unemployed because the countryside is distressed and cannot afford to buy the goods of the town.
Then the hon. Baronet was a little unduly pathetic on behalf of Denmark. I think that Denmark is one of the most attractive countries in the world, and its people are among the most attractive in the world, but they have not given us a square deal. In the last two years, since we adopted a tariff policy, things have improved a little; the value of our imports from Denmark has diminished, and the value of our exports to Denmark has increased. But, even so, according to the figures for the last nine months, which I have in my hand, we imported from Denmark £27,113,000 worth of goods, and we exported to Denmark, of British goods, £8,636,000 worth, and re-exported certain imported goods to the value of £358,000, making altogether roughly £9,000,000; so that the Danes sold to us three times as much as they bought from us. And we know perfectly well, by studying their trade returns, that the bulk of the money which Denmark raised in this country by selling to us primary products was spent in Germany in buying manufactured articles. We are entitled to say to the Danes that they ought to put that right, and I know that a large number of them
are only too anxious to correct that appalling disparity.
I was a little surprised that the hon. Baronet did not mention—I might have cheered him if he had done so—the gross infringement of liberty that is involved in this new policy. About that he said nothing. He made a thoroughly anti-protectionist speech, but he did not discriminate between the two kinds of protection. I like what I call the Conservative kind of protection, but in this matter of bacon imports we are having the Socialist kind of protection—detailed and almost day-to-day intervention by the State in the business, based primarily on the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1931, as amended by the Act of 1933, which, in its first Clause, gives these powers for regulating imports. In comparing a quota with a tariff, I think that a tariff is like a fluid fly-wheel, and a quota like the old-fashioned gear. The latter is very jumpy. The fluid fly-wheel adjusts itself automatically to all conditions, whereas the quota has to be violently changed. It represents a tremendous interference with liberty and makes every business a monopoly, and I think there are very grave dangers inherent in it. On the other hand, I recognise that for the next two years and seven months we cannot use the weapon of the tariff as far as bacon is concerned. The President of the Board of Trade in his agreement gives away that weapon. This country has ratified it, and we, are by treaty bound not to use a tariff, and those who would have preferred a tariff have to take the situation as it is.
We have either to support this Order or not. If we reject it, we leave our growing industry completely at the mercy of foreign competition, and at a time of agricultural depression it is obvious that the agricultural industry would be broken to pieces. I cannot follow the advice of the hon. Baronet. I must vote for the Order, because it is the only course open to me if I desire to do something to help the industry, but I would point out to the Government how crude this method is. This year we have paid for bacon about £300,000 more than we paid for it last year to the foreigner. For that £300,000 more we have obtained 19 per cent. less bacon. On the basis of similar quantities, we have in fact given the foreigner £5,000,000 more than we need have given him and, in order to raise
the price of 2,000,000 cwt. of British bacon or whatever the precise figure is, we have raised the price of 8,000,000 cwts. of foreign bacon, and that seems to me a most unbusinesslike proceeding.

Mr. McENTEE: It is the policy you are supporting.

Mr. WILLIAMS: I am supporting it, because, if I did not, I must accept the destruction of the industy. It is not my fault that I am only given this choice. I should infinitely have preferred a tariff. A small tariff has no effect on prices, though, if you push it up to a certain point, it begins to have an effect on prices. No one is entitled to live cheaply by sweating others. There is a limit below which you are not entitled to go, and, if any commodity is being sold at a price that involves sweating for those who produce it, I do not think there is anyone in the House who would not be prepared to take action. By an appropriate tariff—it wants a little experiment to find out what would be appropriate— you provide an automatic regulator. There is no need to interfere by producing new orders or new negotiations. Every penny that is paid in Customs Duties at least goes into our Exchequer. There is no Customs Duty under the quota system, and the enhanced price goes into the pocket of the foreigner.
It is a thoroughly unsound and unbusinesslike arrangement compared with the superior method of the tariff. For the moment, I profoundly regret that we are not entitled to have it, and, as this is the only way in which I can help the bacon industry, I vote for the Order, but I want to place on record my protest against the adoption of what I regard as an undesirable policy containing in it the seeds of great danger in the future, conceivably corruption, the destruction of liberty, making every trade a monopoly, wasteful in its administration and bad from the revenue point of view. For the moment, it is the only method open to me and I use it, but I look forward to the day when I shall be free to abandon it and choose a very much better weapon for helping an industry which wants help.

4.49 p.m.

Mr. LEONARD: The reason for this Order is the position in which the home pig and bacon producing industries find
themselves in consequence of the Government policy of quota restrictions on bacon and the operation of the pig and bacon marketing schemes. While I am prepared to admit that those industries require to receive recognition along with others, we must not lose sight of the fact that, in doing so, our actions have direct consequences on the general public, and especially the poorer section of the community, and because of that we are entitled to examine the Government proposals from that angle. In October of this year as against October of last year, a pre-quota year, the price of English bacon rose from 70s. to 85s. whereas Danish bacon, which last year was 52s., has actually increased to 76s. The effect on purchasers cannot be brought into greater relief than by a quotation which I have taken from a report issued by the Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society, which states:
On a comparison of five weeks trading, the last week in June and four weeks in July, this year with the same five weeks a year ago there was an average increase of 23½ per cent. in the retail price of bacon sold by the society. This higher price coincided with a decrease of nearly 20 per cent in the weight. The net result was that during five recent weeks members paid approximately the same total cash for their bacon, but they actually received for their money over 100 tons less than in the corresponding weeks of 1932.
If an organisation confining itself to working-class people can show figures such as that, there can be no finer illustration. But since then retail prices have gone up and the rise has been anything from 4d. to 6d. a lb.—an average of about 50 per cent, increase—and in the case of the cheaper kind, that is, the cuts used by the poorest people, the increase has been nearly 100 per cent.
As far as I can gather, it was generally admitted by those competent to enter into the matter that the farmers could not be expected in the first contract period, between November and February, to enter into contracts covering 400,000 pigs, but the fact of the matter is that they have actually entered into contracts to supply over 620,000 pigs in the first contract period. It will be interesting to have the Minister's observations as to the reason of this difference of nearly a quarter of a million pigs in four months. The Government are to make a loan to the Pig Marketing Board, but the Board
will indemnify the curers against losses. That will have to be paid by a levy, I think over a period of two years. So that it appears to me that the Government are creating an artificial shortage through the medium of forcing up prices and that the point will come where either the consumer must cease consuming or must reduce his consumption. The home curers, on the one hand, having guaranteed the farmer certain prices because of the assurances that they assumed the Government were making to him, are now admittedly being faced with losses because the consumer is not buying but is turning, to the extent that he can, to alternatives to bacon. One may find that in the future the industry will be further involved in this tendency, because the Minister is now asking the House to approve of an Order which is intended to create a further shortage of imported bacon and send up prices still higher. What is the use of that when the consumer cannot even afford present prices? If the bacon curer still finds himself unable to make a profit, what is to happen? Is the price paid to the farmer for pigs to go down or is a still further subsidy to be granted to overcome the difficulty.
The question of bacon cannot be considered alone. The Minister knows very well that, when the price of one commodity becomes too high, buyers endeavour to get a substitute for it. If bacon is dear, they may turn to eggs, fish or cheese. A policy of forcing up prices is making that effort more evident in working-class homes than it was previously. The difficulty is that there are very few substitutes that they can now turn to and, if the Government pursue this policy, all avenues which were once alternatives will be closed. Consumers are already paying £6,000,000 for the wheat quota. We have a quota for meat. I have a statement here by the Secretary of State for the Dominions in the "News Letter" of October last year:
It will, of course, mean—it is intended to mean—that the price of mutton and lamb to the consumers in this country will rise.
That is one alternative that will be closed to those who are dissatisfied with the price of bacon. We have at present a Commission sitting on eggs and poultry. They will also lightly assume a similar attitude, and similar action will be taken
as is proposed here. We also recollect that the chairman of the Milk Marketing Board has been discussing matters with the New Zealand people, attempting to persuade them to restrict exports of cheese to this country with a view to raising prices. We are entitled to assume that this is bearing very harshly on consumers, whose wages are not following the same tendency. I think the whole policy of quotas is wrong and, because of that, I am supporting the proposal to reject the Order. The Lord President of the Council in his New Year message to the Conservative party stated:
The fallacy of prohibitive tariffs lies in the assumption that a country may thus make itself prosperous in a poverty-stricken world. This is a delusion.
I agree with that, but if it is true with regard to a tariff, which may be prohibitive, it is even more true with regard to a quota, which actually is prohibitive. The Financial Secretary in the "Times" on 1st June makes this definite statement with regard to tariffs as against quotas:
This was an age of quotas and exchange restrictions. This was not an age of tariffs. Tariffs were very simple obstacles compared with the new obstacles to trade which we were resolved to remove.
Is this a method adopted by the Government to remove an obstacle to trade which is even more potent in killing trade than a tariff? My last point is with regard to the increasing cost of living. According to the figures taken from the "Gazette," I find that in Juno the figure was 36 per cent, above 1914, in July 38 per cent., in August 39 per cent., in September 41 per cent., and in October 41 per cent. If the policy of the Government continues, I think the cost of living will go up even further. I will quote from a letter which I have in my possession from one of the largest buyers of bacon in Scotland:
The worst feature of the advance in prices which has occurred over the summer is that the cheaper cuts such as streaks and fores have practically doubled in value, with the result that this type of cut which was so acceptable to the consumer, particularly in areas where purchasing power is at a low ebb, has gone out of the reach of the poorer consumer, who has therefore ceased to be a buyer of bacon at all at the moment.
Going back to the beginning of January, there has been an advance on Danish sides compared with the end of September of 35s. per cwt., equal to an increase of 53 per
cent. On streaks in the same period there has been an advance of 37s. per cwt., equal to an advance of 168 per cent.
These figures place a burden upon the common people of this country, and for this reason I am pleased to associate myself with the opposition to the Order.

5.2 p.m.

Mr. HOLDSWORTH: A few minutes ago we listened to a very interesting speech by the hon. Member for South Croydon (Mr. H. Williams). He made his position clear that if he had to choose between a tariff and a quota he would certainly choose a tariff. I believe that if the Conservative Members of this House had been allowed a free vote there would have been no question as to what the majority of its Members would have chosen. I said in Committee upstairs that if I was forced to choose between the two I should certainly choose the tariff, although I was opposed both to a tariff and a quota. The absolute result of a quota has been that millions of pounds have been and are being handed over to foreign countries for a less supply of goods brought into this country. The hon. Member for South Croydon also made another point which has always been rather amusing to me. I think he will agree that it is impossible to insist that Denmark should take imports from this country to the exact total in sterling represented by the goods which we take from her. Do we import bacon from Denmark for the good of Denmark? We import bacon from Denmark because we get the best product at the cheapest price. It is hot because we are kind to Denmark that we insist upon taking more than half of our bacon supplies from that particular country. It is because we get a product which can absolutely be relied upon and one which the consumer demands at the lowest possible price. It is futile to bandy words across the Floor of the House of Commons as to whether a small country with a population of 3 3/4 millions could take from this country the same amount as 46,000,000 people take from them. It serves no particular purpose to talk like that. I remember, as will also the Minister of Agriculture and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade, making the point upstairs that eventually the consumer would decide
the price of bacon and of any other commodity. You cannot for a moment assume that you will be able to dictate to the consumers what they shall pay, particularly in the case of bacon. Let us face the facts. What happens? The ordinary working woman cannot go to a shop and say: "I require a pound of bacon this week at whatever price it is." You and I perhaps may be able to afford it. If bacon goes up 3d. a pound we say that we are sorry about it, but we pay it. But the ordinary working woman, when she has paid the rent and all her weekly charges, has only so much money left, and she has to think what that money will buy. If you keep on putting up prices, undoubtedly the consumption of bacon will be lowered.
The hon. Member for South Croydon rather twitted my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Bethnal Green (Sir P. Harris) with raising purely hypothetical questions. I do not want to do that. The House is provided through the Vote Office with what I always find to be a very useful monthly publication— "The Trade and Navigation Returns." We need not be hypothetical in anything we say upon this particular topic. We made the statement upstairs that, unquestionably, if this policy was carried out, the consumption of bacon would go down, and by means of the official publication we can prove that statement up to the hilt. In the month of October, 1932, we imported into this country 1,020,000 cwt. of bacon. In October, 1933, we imported 743,000 cwt., approximately 275,000 cwt. less, with only a difference of £52,000 in cost. I do not think that the Minister of Agriculture will tell me that that difference in importation has been made UD by the production in this country. I am certain that we did not produce 275,000 cwt. more of bacon in this country in the month of October, 1933, than we produced in 1932. So that the first point we made, that the consumption of bacon, both foreign and our own, would go down is absolutely proved by the figures which I have quoted.
It is also very interesting to note that in October, 1932, we imported from Denmark, seeing that Denmark has been quoted—and I have just taken the figures out of that publication—676,000 cwt. at a cast of £1,808,000, and in October, 1933, 424,000 cwt. at a cost of £1,551,000. We
imported from Denmark in October of this year one-third less in weight, and we have only paid a quarter of a million pounds less for it. In the 10 months of 1932 we imported into this country from all countries 9,555,000 cwt. at a total cost of £25,193,000. I hope that the House will pay particular attention to those figures, because it is absolutely vital that we should recognise what the schemes of the Minister of Agriculture are costing this country and especially the poor people of this country. At the end of October, 1933, we had imported 7,767,000 cwt. at a cost of £25,491,000, or 1,788,000 cwt. less for £300,000 more than we paid in 1932. I will put it another way. If you work out carefully the figures of October—the latest figures supplied—you will find that whereas the cost works out at a round figure of 53s. 6d. per cwt., we are now insisting upon paying to Denmark for the same quality of bacon, but for less, 73s. for every cwt. imported into this country.
A few weeks ago I was talking to a gentleman who spends half his week in selling bacon. He told me that through all these restrictions he had to ration his customers because of the import duty put on by the Minister of Agriculture. I want to ask the Minister a particular question with regard to paragraph 1 on page 2 of the Statutory Rule:
It shall not be lawful to import into the United Kingdom except under licence any bacon produced in any foreign country to which this Order applies.
I ask the question merely for information. What are the regulations regarding these licences? Are they restricted to particular people who previously imported, or to particular groups of companies? I spent a fortnight in Denmark going round the farms there, and I know that there are certain companies in England selling for particular slaughterers in Denmark. Are these licences restricted to those particular people, or what sort of policy is followed in deciding whether a licence shall be granted or not? I believe that the whole policy of the right hon. Gentleman is wrong. Its whole idea is misconceived. I remember that when we were upstairs the Parliamentary Secretary turned to me with an air of superior wisdom and said that I did not understand the economy of glut, and I remember replying that I would try and understand that new economy when he could
prove to me that every person in this country had sufficient. There can be no glut when there is not sufficient for the people. I know as a fact that in my city of Bradford the poor people, particularly the unemployed in the poorer areas, were able to buy the cheaper cuts of bacon 12 months ago at 4d. a lb. For 4d. you could give a splendid meal to the whole of the family. We in Yorkshire try to be a thrifty people. We do not have butter with our bacon. We use the fat. [An HON. MEMBERS: "For dip?"] That is right. People have told me what a boon it was to the poorest of the people when they could have a bit of bacon, but now they have to go without. Prices have been raised, and in many instances almost doubled, for the poorer cuts of bacon, and what is the result?
Every calculation upon which the Minister based his scheme has been upset. The latest Order has had to be made because there was a gross miscalculation of the production of pigs in this country for bacon. We were told during the discussion of those schemes that a certain percentage rise was to be allowed for during a certain period. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams) will remember quite well— and I think that he was right in his statement this afternoon—that every calculation upon which the Minister had based his action has proved to be absolutely unfounded. There is not a single calculation which has justified the policy of the Minister. I believe that the Government will find more opposition in the country because of this policy than because of anything else they have done. If there is one thing the people of this country will not tolerate, it is the artificial raising of food prices. The whole policy is misconceived. Instead of working it from the bottom, they are actually imposing it from the top. They are deciding to have a certain price. I repeat, that unless they can absolutely take hold of the lives of the people and say, "You shall consume so much bacon," they cannot dictate their prices. The old law of supply and demand has not been altered by all the wonderful schemes, suggested by the Minister of Agriculture, which, I hope, will fail to succeed.

5.15 p.m.

Mr. ELLIOT: I am sure that we have all listened with interest to the Debate,
and I rise now with the object of dealing with some of the criticisms which have been made. We in the Ministry of Agriculture are delighted to have this opportunity of discussion, for it is certain that unless we can explain the policy to the people and to the Members of this House, and justify it, we shall not succeed. We shall not have much difficulty in dealing with facts such as those just stated by the hon. Member for South Bradford (Mr. Holdsworth). When I hear an hon. Member from a city which has derived as much advantage from the policy of the Government as that city, get up and declaim against other people having similar advantages, I say that he cannot demand security for the industry of the towns and deny security to the industry of the countryside. When I heard him saying that he hopes these schemes will fail, I turn to what the representatives of his party said in June of this year, when the schemes were brought before the House and when the whole basis of the bacon scheme was no longer anything hidden, but was clearly explained. He did not then vote against it. The spokesman of his party gave it his blessing.

Mr. HOLDSWORTH: What we did not vote against was the marketing scheme. This is a totally different thing—artificial restriction of supply.

Mr. ELLIOT: The scheme was fully explained to the House, as will be seen in col. 1547 of the OFFICIAL REPORT. I then said:
The powers are provided under the Marketing Act, 1931, and the regulation of supplies, which they (the Lane Fox Commission) said was in their view an essential part of the proposal, will be provided under the Marketing Act of 1933."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 28th June, 1933; col. 1549, Vol. 279.]
After that, the spokesman of the hon. Member's party gave the scheme his blessing. The hon. Member cannot play fast and loose with the House of Commons in this way. This is part of the policy which was worked out, in the first place, carefully by the Commission set up not by myself but by the previous Minister of Agriculture and by my right hon. Friend the Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir A. Sinclair), who I am glad to see in his place. It was they and not I who instructed the Commission to
work out a scheme for bacon and to investigate the manner in which its operation might be facilitated by the quantitative regulation of imports of bacon. That was the instruction given on the 21st April, on which date the Commission was appointed. It reported at the end of the year and its report has been very thoroughly gone into, has been put into operation, and is working in the way in which it was foreseen it would work by the Commission, and I say now that whoever has the right to attack the working of this scheme, or more particularly the principles of this scheme, it certainly does not lie in the mouths of hon. and right hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway.

Major Sir ARCHIBALD SINCLAIR: The right hon Gentleman has said that before, and I do not think he ought to repeat it, because he has been told the true facts. He was told the facts by the right hon. Member for Darwen (Sir H. Samuel) the last time that he made that statement. The facts are, that we laid down certain conditions on which we would be prepared to agree to the quantitative regulation of imports. Those conditions have been stated publicly in the House. One of the conditions was the safeguarding of the consumer, to which the hon. Member for South Bradford has referred. There were four conditions. They have been repeatedly stated in the House, and I must draw the right hon. Gentleman's attention to them again.

Mr. ELLIOT: My attention has been drawn not merely to what was said by the right hon. Member for Darwen but what was said by a right hon. Gentleman not so directly concerned as the right hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland, in so far as he was not responsible for signing the minutes for the appointment of the Lane Fox Commission. However much the right hon. Gentleman may seek to evade responsibility for the appointment of that commission, for the terms of reference of his own commission and his own signature, he will not succeed. I do not need to go to the right hon. Gentleman's signature, which he now wishes to evade, or to the terms of reference to the commission, which he drew up, but I will refer to the Debate in the House on the 28th June of this year, when the right hon. Gentleman was no longer a member of the Government, when the proposals
to work a quota and a scheme for the restriction of foreign supplies had been explained, canvassed and was in operation. It was after that that the right hon. Gentleman and his party assented, through the mouth of his Leader, to this scheme, and to this method of working.

Sir A. SINCLAIR: No.

Mr. ELLIOT: I find it difficult to deal with my right hon. Friend. He denies the terms of reference, he denies his signature, he denies the commission and now he denies his assent.

Sir A. SINCLAIR: It is somewhat difficult to have to contradict these repeated wild assertions of my right hon. Friend. I have never denied my signature or the terms of reference, which were quite clear. The commission was to consider a scheme for the working of pig marketing in this country and it was considered in that connection that quantitative methods of regulation were advisable, but we never agreed to adopt any recommendations which that commission made. I never put my signature to any such undertaking. The conditions on which we were prepared to agree to such regulation have constantly been mentioned both by the right hon. Member for Darwen and myself.

Mr. ELLIOT: My right hon. Friend has not come to the real point, which was this—what did he do on the 28th June of this year. He may say that he did not sign the report, but it is true that the report was presented, not to him and his colleagues but to other Ministers, myself, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland. We acted upon the report, we brought this scheme before the House, and in col. 1547 of the OFFICIAL REPORT, on the 28th June, I explained that the restriction of the foreign imports was an essential part of the scheme. It was after my speech and not before it that my right hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Sir F. Acland) said—
I have pleasure in giving general support to the two schemes now before us."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 28th June, 1933; col. 1557, Vol. 279.]
In a speech which occupied three and a-half columns of the OFFICIAL REPORT he made no complaint against the regulation of foreign supply, which I had previously stated was an essential part of the scheme and without which the
scheme would not work. It will be found in col. 1658 of the OFFICIAL REPORT of the 28th June that the question was put and agreed to. If the right hon. Gentleman had disagreed he could have made his protest then, and so could the hon. Member for South Bradford.

Mr. HOLDSWORTH: If the right hon. Gentleman suggests that I have been inconsistent, may I say that my attitude has been absolutely consistent from the beginning to the end? It is perfectly futile for him to make such a suggestion.

Mr. ELLIOT: My right hon. Friend the Member for Caithness and Sutherland accuses me of making wild statements. I have given chapter and verse from the OFFICIAL REPORT, and there is also the record of the Division Lobby. That was the time when a protest could have been made.

Mr. HOLDSWORTH: If the right hon. Gentleman wishes to quote anything that I may have said, perhaps he will quote from the speeches that I made upstairs in Committee, day after day, in opposition to this scheme of restriction.

Mr. ELLIOT: In speech after speech my hon. Friend did protest against the policy of regulation, but when it came down to a particular scheme then my hon. Friend ran away from it. That is my complaint. Let me say further that in his speech to-day he made a series of wild assertions. He says that every calculation on which we have based our figures are wrong. He did not give evidence of that. A criticism along the same lines was made by the hon. Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams), but the hon. Member for Don Valley did me justice to quote the calculation to which he took exception. He said that the Lane Fox Commission allowed for 10 per cent, expansion every four months, that the expansion has been at a much greater rate and therefore the calculation of the Commission is erroneous. Let me point out that the calculation of 10 per gent. expansion every four months which the Lane Fox Commission made—reference to which will be found on page 29 of the Report —comes on after the first full contract period, and there is no suggestion there as to what happens before the first contract period takes place. We are not
now dealing with the expansion after that contract period has begun but after the coming into effect of the scheme, and it was made clear in the Lane Fox report that not only should the contracts to be brought forward in the preliminary period be accepted, but that contracts brought forward in the next period should be accepted also. The regulated expansion with which they dealt was a regulated expansion which might begin after the expiry of the first full contract period. Therefore, I submit that the 10 per cent, expansion subsequent to that time has no bearing on the problem we bad to determine at the time, namely, what was the level likely to be of the pig production when it was established on a contract basis in this country.

Mr. T. WILLIAMS: I tried to qualify my calculation. It is true that the Reorganisation Commission recommended successive increases of 10 per cent, for each four months, and, of course, a compound 10 per cent, increase in the subsequent period will be considerably higher than in the first period. The first calculation was the thing I criticised, because the Minister seems to have made his first calculation upon the first contract period, where 620,000 pigs have been contracted for in excess of the Reorganisation Commission's calculation and the calculation of the right hon. Gentleman. I also said that for a period the farmers withheld pigs from the bacon factories, and only when higher prices were made available did they hurl these excess supplies at the bacon factories. My implication clearly was that in the subsequent period that increase will not be maintained. Therefore, the excess will be temporary, a shortage will be produced by the restrictions, and the gap will not be made up.

Mr. ELLIOT: I shall not take exception to that criticism. These are points which we shall have to think out in working out the scheme. Requests have been put forward by the producers and curers. It is suggested that the production in subsequent periods may not continue at the rate which the present figures indicate. All that I can say is that I have not been able to find any facts which would bear out that view. It seems to us that this increase in pig production is probably an increase which is borne out by the facts.
We did our best to ascertain from the most responsible authorities whether this was merely a temporary excess which would pass away or a permanent establishment of the pig and bacon industry on a higher level. It certainly is not my desire, or the desire of anyone in this House, artificially to cut down the supplies of bacon below the level which experience has shown is sufficient for the people of this country, and, therefore, if the home quota is not maintained a corresponding increase in overseas supplies will have to be made available. There is no doubt that that will have to be done.

Mr. LOGAN: At increased prices?

Mr. ELLIOT: I will deal with that point when I come to it. In the first place, I must point out that we are dealing with a scheme which is not the result of hysterical or panicky action. It was the result of a Commission appointed more than 18 months ago by Ministers some of whom were of a different political complexion from myself, who do not now support the Government, but who, it must be presumed, had their own point of view on this matter. The working out of the scheme has been going on for a long period of months. The scheme as a whole, which involved a restriction of overseas supplies, was put before the House last June, and the step we are taking to-day is in pursuance of this long thought out scheme which has been before the House of Commons on many occasions. The point brought forward by one or two hon. Members to-day, that the calculations upon which we have been working have encouraged a rise in prices arises to some extent from an interpretation of the report different from that which I have put upon it. I may be mistaken, and my hon. Friends may be mistaken, but I think that a little examination of the text will show that my interpretation is correct, that we are dealing with the first contract period and, therefore, in that case all our estimates were in the nature of guesswork.
We are told that we must be as far as possible practical in these matters. We got signed, sealed and stamped contracts for pigs, and these contracts were documents of the utmost value as they were the estimates upon which alone the Pig and Bacon Boards and the Ministry could
work in the earlier stages. To say that the British producers contracted to provide a very much larger number of pigs than the number stated in the estimates of the Ministry, and larger than that for which the Pig and Bacon Boards had previously allowed, does not justify in any way the wild assertion of the hon. Member for South Bradford, that every calculation upon which the Minister proceeded was utterly wrong and has been upset. The hon. Member has been led away rather further than the facts warrant. The general point of view brought forward by hon. Members in other portions of the House is one which demands attention. Has the shortage been artificially produced; have prices been pushed to an unreasonable point? Several hon. Members, including the hon. Member for St. Rollox (Mr. Leonard), made that point with great pertinacity.
We must remember that in this matter we are dealing with a product which in the past has been subject to very great fluctuations, much greater fluctuations than those we are now considering. Although at times consumers have enjoyed the benefit of cheap bacon they have also been subjected to much higher prices, and it is not just and fair to take the bottom of the pig cycle as the point at which to draw your comparison with present prices. You must take the deep oscillations between pig prices when they were high and when they were low. These differences have been very great for many years past, and it was with the object of ironing out these great fluctuations that the scheme was undertaken. Clearly it is a great disadvantage to the consumers to have a violent and sudden subsidence of prices followed by a violent rise. In the one case the producer is liable to be ruined and in the other the consumer is rooked. If we can level out prices surely it is to the advantage of consumers as well as producers. Unless these things actually redound to the credit of both seller and buyer they are not transactions which can permanently endure.
Let us look at the datum prices in a year not far away, in a year to which hon. Members opposite look back with great satisfaction, the year 1930. We have often heard from hon. Members opposite how prosperous and happy the
country was then. We are blamed because it is said that the price of bacon is now unreasonably high. The hon. Member for St. Rollox took the October price this year. The October price of bacon was 1s. 1¼d. per lb. for streaky bacon, which it is said is a cut of peculiar interest to poor people. In October, 1930, the price of that cut was 1s. 3d. per lb. Earlier in the same year, in the months of January and February, it had been as high as 1s. 5¼d. and 1s. 5½d. These are retail prices, although I am quite willing to take the argument of the wholesale prices. During the whole of that year 1930 the retail price of this cut of bacon averaged 1s. 4 1/10d., whereas during the present year it has only gone over 1s. on two occasions, and even to-day it is 1s. 1¼d. as against a level of 1s. 41/10d; during the whole of 1930. While 1 say that it is most desirable that the price of a staple food should not go to unreasonable heights, or that a shortage should be artificially created, I do claim that it is a little unfair for hon. Members to advance the argument that the price of bacon has been pushed to a level entirely outside the reach of the working classes. If the price was within the reach of the working classes in 1930, and I did not hear any attack from hon. Members below the Gangway or from hon. Members opposite that it was pushed out of the reach of working people then, surely it is a little unfair to say, when it is about 3d. per lb. lower, that it is outside the reach of working people today.
There is the further point, that the restrictions themselves are bad because they are injuring our trade with foreign countries. I find myself rather in a quandary because the hon. Member for South Bradford quotes with approval a statement of my hon. Friend the Member for South Croydon (Mr. H. Williams) that he prefers a tariff to a quota. The hon. Member for South Croydon prefers a tariff to a quota because in that way none of the purchasing power of this country escapes to the country abroad, but the hon. Member for South Bradford is bound to attack me because in this case a certain limitation of the purchasing power of persons abroad takes place. The hon. Member for South Croydon is rather a dangerous ally for my hon. Friend the Member for South Bradford. They may advance against me in battle
array, but I shall not be greatly afraid, because at an early stage they will no doubt draw their claymores against each other.
It is difficult to consider this matter unless hon. Members are prepared to give close attention to novel considerations. The case we make is that we desire to maintain our trade with other countries, and that by this system we have been able to maintain our trade relations with other countries. Their purchasing power has not fallen and they have been enabled to maintain their purchases of our goods, of our textile goods, which a too drastic interference by tariffs might have driven away altogether. An unremunerative level of prices is not to the advantage of the consumer or the producer. The unremunerative levels of prices of agricultural produce in October of last year meant early bankruptcy to many of those engaged in the breeding of livestock both here and abroad. I do not wish to overstate my case; it is easy to be led away by a little vehemence, and if I have done any injustice to the cogent arguments of the hon. Member for South Bradford, I hope he will put it down to an excess of zeal on my part and not to any lack of consideration for the speech he made.
If we believe in cheapness, and cheapness only, we must be prepared in this Country to see prices sink to a level never reached before. I have said in the country, and I say again to-night, that it is no advantage to the housewife to buy at a cut price in the shop if by so doing she puts her man on the dole. It has been said time and time again by hon. Members opposite that if bacon is bought and sold at unremunerative prices the agricultural wages rates in this country will fall to a level far lower than they are maintained now; and they claim to have convinced the country that unremunerative wage levels for labour are bad for the nation as a whole. They must realise that they must be prepared to take the succeeding step. If you insist on a remunerative wage level for the workers of the country you must be prepared to give a price which will enable that wage level to be maintained. I do not wish to ride off on the claim that the rise in prices has been small or negligible, because a rise of one penny per pound on bacon to poor people is not a small or negligible
rise. I do not suggest that rises are not taking place, but I earnestly desire the House to face the general question that unless we can establish a remunerative price level all our attempts at social amelioration will fail. It can be done, and at the same time we can maintain a great population in employment. Those people now in employment and those in receipt of employment relief will be able to buy more and pay better for the agricultural and other products of this country than they have been able to do hitherto.
If we have done that by a policy of protection, by a policy of ordered regulation, by a policy for controlling the supply situation of this country, surely you do not wish that such schemes should fail merely because they involve inconvenience and even loss in their initial stages? Is it the wish that the whole system of ordered supply should collapse and that there should be nothing to put in its place? Other countries are trying experiments to-day, experiments which in some cases involve a far greater destruction of supplies than anything which has been contemplated in this country. Here we have a scheme which has worked and which has led to 620,000 bacon pigs being sold under contract at a price which the farmers believe to be a remunerative price. Why should we suppose that that will not be followed by an expansion in British trade, just as much as if those pigs had been bought from Denmark? We cannot say that a pig raised by a smallholder in Denmark helps British trade, but that a pig produced in Monmouthshire hurts British trade. There is no other way but this. We must be prepared to pay a remunerative price for the products of our own factories and our own soil. I ask the House to face that fact.

5.47 p.m.

Mr. DAVID GRENFELL: The two right hon. Gentlemen who have spoken from the benches opposite have been faithful to their border traditions, but they, are such close friends and have such close association that we dare not intervene in their disagreements and altercation. The Minister of Agriculture in dealing with the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for the Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams) displayed a more
reasonable attitude. When he came to deal with the figures which my hon. Friend put forward I do not think the Minister was quite happy, and he certainly failed to convince me that he was satisfied with the revelations which the quarterly contracts for the supply of pigs for bacon curing have provided. The hon. Member for Don Valley quoted figures and showed to the satisfaction of everyone who has examined this question that all the calculations made by the Minister, calculations on which his policy is based, have been belied by the experience of recent months. When the right hon. Gentleman finds his calculations so far wrong I am sure he must be very anxious indeed regarding the future of his schemes. The right hon. Gentleman expressed some satisfaction in the latter part of his speech that we have been able to produce 620,000 pigs for bacon curing in the first quarter. But the right hon. Gentleman did not refer to the fact that one of the members of the Commission upon whose report the whole of this undertaking has been based, made reservations on this very question of the failure to provide a safeguard for the pork supply of this country.
We are to-day working on an entirely different set of figures from those with which we were dealing when the Agricultural Marketing Bill was in Committee. It is easy for the Minister to slide and skip over relevant arguments. I think ho was wrong in even suggesting that the hon. Member for South Bradford (Mr. Holdsworth) had relaxed his opposition to the Bill at any stage. I remember that my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley and I faced a formidable opposition both upstairs in Committee and downstairs when this Bill was under discussion. Day after day we were stonewalling in trying to show a case in opposition to the Government's case. We are really tired of hearing the same arguments used here to-night as were used on those occasions, the same old jargon about ironing out variations in prices, etc. They are the same arguments though the phraseology may be changed. To-night we have heard of oscillations. We are told that the Government are trying to level out the oscillations. That is the justification for all the elaborate machinery which the House is asked to support.
The Minister has said that the Government and business are not two things nowadays, but are one. The Minister has been going to all kinds of functions and meeting all kinds of people and saying that the principles on which the Government have acted in the past have been abandoned, and that now business and the Government are one. So the right hon. Gentleman said in an after-dinner speech in the country some time ago. We want to know what kind of business Government and industry are going to carry on together. I can understand the Government being anxious in this difficulty. The Minister said that the job was to level out. Behold the new levellers! I am afraid that what the Government will succeed in doing is not so much to level out as to flatten out business altogether in this country.
This Order means further restrictions— restriction of business, restriction of sale, restriction of production. It must have that effect. The intention for the moment is to reduce imports by 16 per cent. The Lane Fox Commission budgeted upon the assumption that we require in this country 10,670,000 cwts. of bacon yearly. I believe that that estimate was made on the five or six years average before 1930. But in 1931, the year to which the Minister has referred as the year of crisis and economic difficulties, the people of this country actually consumed 2,500,000 cwts. more than that figure; the consumption was in excess Of 13,000,000 cwts. in 1931. The Minister says that his scheme is based on the recommendation of the commission, which stated that the consumption should be 10,750,000 cwts., the average of the six years 1925 to 1930.
A good many reasons have been adduced for the Order, and the main argument is that we have produced more pigs than were expected. The estimates were wrong. The Minister cannot explain why there are more pigs than his expert advisers told him would be brought forward. The price paid for these pigs is 12s. a score. The Minister takes credit and says that all these pigs are coming forward. Does not everyone see quite plainly that he will be able to get the 620,000 pigs, because the farmer knows that he can get as much money by selling them for bacon curing as he can by selling them for pork? I am not quite
sure that there will be no shortage of pork this Christmas, because of the contracts entered into. No reference has been made to that supply of pork, which is a necessary food in winter time, when we require more fats and more meat to maintain warmth and heat.
The higher price, the Minister told us, will mean more home production. Are we quite sure? Our difficulty is to argue with people who always wear economic blinkers. High prices mean high production, it is said. The difficulty is not in production but in consumption. Those who demand high prices ignore altogether the position of the mass of consumers in this country. You cannot sell the whole of the meat of this country at a high price, because the purchasing power of the mass of consumers is limited. Wages to-day are lower than they have been at any time in the last 15 years. I hate to have to talk about the poor consumer in this country, for we ought all to know quite enough about him. I hate to talk sob stuff. But there is great injustice in measures like this, because they neglect the interests of the people whose purchasing power is limited and who cannot buy when the price is raised too high. The foreign producer is all right. The Danish producers' interests are still to be safeguarded. My hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley gave some astonishing figures. I shall give an example of the change in prices. In one week in 1932 we paid £343,000 for 133,000 cwt. of bacon. In one week in 1933 we paid £456,000 for 110,000 cwt. of bacon. That means that very much more money was paid to Denmark for very much less bacon. That is the natural result of the agreement which was made and that result will be repeated and perpetuated by the plan which we are asked to endorse to-day.
The housewife going to the shop with her slender purse, and many purses are slender to-day, will have to pay 4d. per lb. more for bacon in order that the Danish producers may get more than they ever expected to get—indeed more than they wanted to get. They are economists and they know the meaning of the proverb about "killing the goose that lays the golden eggs." In this instance the British producer is the goose and he is a goose to allow his business to be handled in this way by a Government.
We are not doing the right thing by our own people in this matter. Under this plan we are creating a scarcity in our own markets for the benefit of foreign producers more than for the benefit of the home producer. The Danish people are now to be restricted but they will still be all right unless prices change. They have protested, and though I do not think that any violent protest was called for from them, their protest was justified on the terms of the agreement. A Danish member of the negotiating board wrote:
What has happened is much to be regretted. It is one of the conditions of the Anglo-Danish commercial agreement that a reduction of that sort should not take place.
That is the reduction of 16 per cent, in the quota. I think it was 20 per cent, as originally proposed. The writer proceeds:
That was the reason why we considered ourselves free to oppose it.
The Danish Government have opposed the limitation. It may be that some temporary agreement has been reached to enable the Government to carry on but, whatever Governments do, the right hon. Gentleman is not entitled to say that the Government and business are one and the same thing in this country. That is not the case here. Neither is it the case in Denmark. The Danish Government may have yielded to some form of pressure or to the persuasions of the right hon. Gentleman. We know that he is persuasive and I can imagine these people "falling for" his bland manner of speech and intriguing arguments. But whatever agreement he comes to with the Danish Government, the right hon. Gentleman cannot get the Danish people to buy from us unless we buy from them, and if we reduce the volume of Danish imports into this country and at the same time reduce the price of Danish bacon, the result will be to reduce the purchasing power of the Danish community and they will be unable to buy as much from us as they formerly did.
We would like to know the Government policy in this matter, if they have a policy. What we have been treated to this afternoon is not a statement of policy at all. We have not been given any definite line of policy which is to be followed on this question. This is a makeshift arrangement, an attempt to bargain here and balance there. The
Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade told us that what the Government are aiming at is not a price policy but a policy of stabilising supplies. What does the hon. Gentleman mean by that statement? Are we to be told that this powerful Government with its great majority is fixing the quantity of bacon to be eaten by the people of this country. If so, is the quantity to be less than the quantity eaten on the average in the six years to which I have already referred? Is it to be much lower than the quantity eaten in what is described as the disastrous year of 1931? Apparently in 1931 our working people could occasionally enjoy a rasher of bacon. Is that to be denied to them by those who have been termed the "rasher slashers" of 1933?
What is the Government's policy for getting out of this muddle? The Minister has been forced to improvise and to make special arrangements. His policy has broken down. He has been driven abroad to try to effect some arrangement with the Danes which will enable him to get over the difficulties created by his own machine. We shall be in difficulties again in a month or two and a similar process will be repeated. Is it the object of the Government to extend agricultural production at home? We could understand that object. I not only understand but would sympathise with such an object to a very large extent, but the right hon. Gentleman has told us in emphatic and unmistakable words that it would be black treachery to those who are now on the land if we sent more men on to the land and added to our agricultural production until the question of marketing has been solved. It is not his intention therefore for the moment to send more men on to the land or to increase agricultural production. We would like to know whether, on the other hand, a policy of subsidising foreign producers at the expense of the poorest of the people of this country is to be followed. The Minister is in a mess. The Government are held fast on the dilemma of higher prices and lower consumption. If they decide for higher prices, they decide at the same time for lower consumption but the worst effect is that while their marketing schemes will go on it will be at the expense of the large mass of the people whose purchasing power has been reduced. Since 1931, by the policy of
the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues in the Government, cuts have been applied which have reduced the purchasing power of the people by many millions.

Sir JOSEPH LAMB: Nobody's more than the agriculturists'.

Mr. GRENFELL: Yes and at this moment, having given them all this machinery, having given a quota payment for wheat and having given millions for de-rating, we find the Government looking on while 12 county agricultural committees are reducing the wages of agricultural producers. That is not the way to deal with the situation. We on this side object to the lowering of the purchasing power of the people, in nominal terms, and we object still more strongly to the reduction of that purchasing power by indirect means such as the raising of prices against people whose wages are already too low. But that is the Government policy as far as we can ascertain it. It is a policy of higher prices for milk producers and bacon producers. They are blind and deaf to all the evidence that exists to show that if you raise these prices too high you will cut down the volume of consumption and that the glut of production which must ensue will, in its turn, force a further fall in prices. We have heard a great deal about gentlemen's agreements —agreements with distributors, with grocers, with dairymen—but never a suggestion of any gentlemen's agreement with the best gentlemen in this country, the working people. There is never a suggestion by the Government of an agreement with the working men and women whose interests ought to be considered at all times. We are anxious that this Order should not go through, that Orders of this kind should not be introduced at all, but that the Government should come down here with a real economic policy to provide a purchasing power that will create a demand for commodities and stabilise prices at the higher level which would be reached in that way.

6.10 p.m.

Mr. DAVID MASON: I had not intended to intervene in this Debate but the speech which we heard from the Minister of Agriculture would compel any-
one with a sense of fairness to make some comments. We on these benches are getting a little tired of hearing——

Mr. GEOFFREY PETO: Why not go across?

Mr. D. MASON: As I say we on these benches are getting a little tired of hearing repeatedly from the Minister of Agriculture and other Ministers the criticism that the speeches of my right hon. Friend the Member for Darwen (Sir H. Samuel) and other hon. and right hon. Gentlemen who sit in this part of the House are not consistent with speeches which they delivered when they were Members of the Government. In fairness to my hon. and right hon. Friends let us realise, as I am sure the Minister of Agriculture realises, that they joined this Government from patriotic motives, believing that the country was in a grave crisis and that it was their duty to endeavour to find a way out of our difficulties. Now they are continually taunted because they left the Government when they found that they had been led into a trap and that their patriotic desire to serve the country was being exploited by a Conservative Ministry in connection with Measures like this. We are continually hearing cheap criticism of that sort. We have just had an example of it from the Minister of Agriculture. We had another example the other evening from the Foreign Secretary who taunted my right hon. Friend the Member for Darwen on the same lines, and talked about the loss to the Government of my right hon. Friend's counsel and abilities and so forth. I repeat that we are getting a little tired of that sort of thing. Any fair-minded man will understand that a Member of a National Government, if a certain policy is proposed, may from patriotic motives feel himself justified in giving way on some of his ideals and beliefs, economic or otherwise. It is very easy however to read passages from the OFFICIAL REPORT as the Minister of Agriculture has done and as other Ministers do, and to create laughter among the Government's followers when it is desired to bring out some petty point of difference between the attitude of my hon. and right hon. Friends when they were Members of the Government and their attitude now that they are free men. Let us make an end of that.
The Minister of Agriculture in his speech however was ingenious as well as ingenuous. His idea was to divert the attention of hon. Members like myself who are anxious to understand what we are discussing by entering into these domestic details and personal controversies. We are discussing this Order and the Minister said very little about it. What does the Order propose? The hon. Member for South Croydon (Mr. H. Williams) pointed out in a very able speech what is proposed. I do not agree with the hon. Members advocacy of a tariff, but I must admit that he put his finger on the main point in this Order, namely, that it creates a monopoly. The hon. Member said he preferred a tariff. I disagree with both monopoly and tariff but I compliment and congratulate the hon. Member for South Croydon because he is sincere and honest in avowing his preference for a tariff as compared with the reactionary and unsound method of dealing with the trade of this country proposed in the Order. The hon. Member for South Bradford (Mr. Holdsworth) quoted from paragraph 1 of the Order which states that it shall not be lawful to import, except under licence, any bacon produced in any foreign country to which the Order applies. He wanted to know on what terms these licences were to be granted. He will find that paragraph 6 of the Order states that a licence granted for the purposes of the Order is to be revocable at any time and
may be granted on such terms and subject to such conditions as the Board of Trade may think proper.
That we should be asked to grant such powers to any Board of Trade, whether supported by the Labour party or by the Conservative party, that we should be asked to hand over such powers to this Government, to the gentlemen who adorn this Front Bench, that we should be asked to agree that any of these Orders that they choose to make should be granted or revoked at any time, subject to such conditions as the Board may think proper, is, to my mind, extraordinary. Does the Board of Trade impress the House that it has genius or supermen? Does any Board of Trade impress the House in that way?
This is a question of the rights of the House of Commons. Are we who come here to discuss these questions to hand
over these powers that our constituents have delegated to us? I am not discussing this from a Tariff Reform or from a Free Trade point of view, but from a House of Commons point of view, and I appeal to any Member of this House to agree that to pass an Order of this sort is really to hand over our rights to another body, and practically to give them a monopoly of saying what shall and what shall not be done and who shall or who shall not get a licence. I hope hon. Members, whatever their views may be, will at least remember the high traditions of this House, and that some of them, anyhow, will have the courage, to whatever party they may belong, to go into the Lobby against this Order.

6.18 p.m.

Sir FRANCIS ACLAND: I very much regret that I was not able to be present in order to hear the speech of the Minister, particularly as I understand he, quite fairly of course, referred to me and suggested that I had approved this sort of thing some months ago. I was prevented, not by any party meeting or anything of that kind, but because I happened to be this afternoon in charge of a court which, unfortunately, sits until six o'clock, and I have only just been able to get here. I feel, on days of this kind, like the Minister must often feel—how convenient it would be if only there were an extra five or six hours put into the day every now and then, so that it might be easier for us to do as we would like to do and to be in two places at once. I think the Minister might arrange that for us. He would only have to arrange that the sun should stand still every now and then, which I think he would find quite as easy as regulating the price of agricultural produce by controlling both internal and external supplies, which is what he is trying to do under these Orders.
With regard to the suggestion, quite fairly made, that I had said in my speech on the Second Reading of the Agricultural Marketing Bill of this year that I thought there was considerable hope of success with regard to bacon, and that if you were to try this sort of machinery, you had better try it on the pig, I certainly said that, thinking at the time that there was a considerable chance of this machinery effecting its purpose if the Report of the Lane Fox Commission, the
Pig Reorganisation Report, were carried out. But the difficulties that have occurred are owing to the fact that it has not been carried out, and that the scheme as contemplated in that Report and as carefully worked out in that Report has been, on the very first occasion, extensively varied, so as, I understand, to necessitate borrowing by the bacon factories in order to secure that the farmers shall get their money under their contracts. I say that, with regard to things of this kind which are now happening, my right hon. Friend was definitely warned. As they say to motorists when they are approaching a dangerous corner, "You have been warned," and in the same speech from which my right hon. Friend no doubt quoted he will find that I said very definitely that there could only be danger if they proceeded by the method of controlling supplies first and reorganising the industry afterwards. What has happened over this bacon business is precisely a manifestation of the; danger that I prophesied.
I also said in the same speech that the limits within which you could influence prices by limiting supplies were very narrow, that in the long run you could only bring agriculture back to prosperity by rendering the customers of agriculture prosperous, and that all these artificial schemes could only operate within very narrow limits until we could really in some way do that. But I do not want to refer only to my own small warnings, because there is something much more authoritative which goes to the root of what has been done under this Bacon Order. The Ministers seem to be trying to do two things. They are trying to carry out the whole of what was recommended by the Lane Fox Commission's Report to be gradually spread over a series of years in pretty well one fell swoop, whereas the Reorganisation Commission made it clear that they thought the thing only ought to be done quite slowly and with small percentage advances through successive periods. Secondly, the Minister has been going in for, and committing himself much further to, the policy of quotas against foreign supplies than was contemplated in that admirable and cautious Reorganisation Report, which we know as the Lane Fox Report. This is what I would like to quote from page 20 of that Report:
The quota is an untried instrument in this country. By other countries it has been used as a temporary expedient to be used in a period of crisis. In no country has it yet been regarded as a constructive instrument.
This Order contains the use of quotas as a permanent, constructive instrument, regardless of the warnings given in that Report. What has really happened? There was talk of this restriction, then there was actual restriction, then the price of bacon went up, then there was complaint, and then more bacon had to be let in; but practically from the beginning of this year the farmers have been induced to believe that there was sure to be an increase of prices. Consequently, they have arranged for an increase in the number of pigs, pigs being a very short-cycle business if you set out to increase their supplies, and that has taken place because the farmers have been very much disappointed that, owing to the Ottawa Agreements, it has not been possible to get them any effective, better price for their stock. Then, of course, the contracts went out, then they came tin, and they were very much bigger than had been expected. They were accepted, but the factories could not make a profit if they took all that supply, and I believe that money has had to be borrowed. That is all part of this business, and I cannot look forward to that, being so great a variation of anything of which I could approve in the Lane Fox Commission's Report, without the very gravest misapprehension.
That sum which has had to be borrowed in order that the farmers may get their contract prices can only be liquidated, it seems to me, in three ways—either by the Government making a grant later on, and if that is done it is, of course, goodbye to any idea that these schemes are self-contained and are being run by the farmers themselves, without Government help; or prices must be still further increased in order that the money now borrowed can be recouped by higher prices to the consumer, in which case the scheme will become even more unpopular than it is now, and it is unpopular enough; or you will have to get this money repaid later on by lowering the contract price, in which case the farmers will be gravely disappointed of the expectations that
they have been led to form. I am bound to say that, although I am not on the inside of the industry, I believe that in the long run we shall find, and before we are very much older, that it would have been better to have scaled down the contracts, to have accepted the contracts in full from the small men and scaled them down from the larger men, and run the scheme as the Reorganisatioon Commission had contemplated and recomomended that it should be doone. It was the only method which I had thought might do good in the industry.
If that had been done, you would have gradually got the farmer accustomed to producing pigs of a quality comparable with the Danish pigs, which the ordinary housewife has learned to know and appreciate. Unfortunately, a great deal of our bacon is not of that quality, either in regularity or in actual quality. You cannot rush these things. You cannot change the quality of one of the main supplies of food without its being, it may be, resented, and without there being repercussions on the amount that will be bought and the price at which it will be bought. From that point of view, it is surely right that the thing should have been done gradually. You would have avoided this heavy debt, which is surely a bad way in which to start off a scheme. In my experience in North Cornwall and other places I know that chapels mostly have debts when they start, and they continue to have them. They flourish on their debts, and it is quite as respectable for a chapel to have a debt as for a woman with children to have a wedding ring. But there is a great deal of difference between a chapel debt, which the members are always trying to reduce, and successfully, and starting one of these schemes off with a debt, and with the certainty either of being able to discharge it only by raising prices and making the scheme unpopular, or diminishing the amount given to the farmer later on.
There is one other point. I want to refer to an extraordinarily useful book, dealing with this among many other subjects, that has recently been published by Lord Astor and Mr. Keith Murray, which I hope everyone who deals with agricultural matters in future will read, because it is an extraordinarily sane, moderate, convincing, and constrictive setting forth of the planning of agriculture. It is called
The Planning of Agriculture," and it has very much helped me in confirming the sort of point that I have been trying to put before the House. If we would really read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest that book, I think we should get more reality, actuality, and good sense into our agricultural discussions than we have even at the present time.
I would just like to make a point arising from reading that book in the last day or two with regard to the tendency in which the Government seem to be drifting in these schemes. They want by regulating production on every farm and by regulating imports by their quota orders to regulate supplies, both internal and external; and by regulating supplies they hope to regulate prices to the consumer; and through the prices to the consumer they want to be sure of being able to pay a previously contracted price to the producer so that he may get a steady and standard price for his products. The point I want to make is that prices are not a function of supply. Prices are a function of supply and demand, and it is impossible, except in a completely Socialised state, to stabilise demand. Schemes of this sort are more and more going to lead, if they are to be efficient, to the necessity of stabilising both the whole methods of supply on the farm and the amount of demand by the housewife—which is a terrible business to contemplate. After all, there are many constantly varying factors which regulate demand. One is quality, and my fear is that if the quality ever goes down that will affect the price, and you will get bacon of an inferior quality which will not pay the prices that have been calculated on in this scheme.
The second factor is the comparable price of other foodstuffs. You cannot prevent the housewife, if she does not like to pay so much for her bacon and milk, turning to something else. In this rapidly developing world other things are constantly coming along, and the scheme will be upset by the fact that you will find people, especially if the country remains in its present depression, tending to buy whatever is the cheapest thing on the market in order to get a little variation in their main commodities of tea, bread and so on, on which most people nowadays have to rely.
Of course, the demand must vary with the general price level in its relation to the world level, and, even more important, the demand will vary according to the change in the value and volume of money. All these things are constantly varying. Public taste is varying, and, although you will be able to stabilise the amount of the product, you will never be able to stabilise the demand for it by the actual consumer on whom you depend. Even so, I believe that if this scheme had been worked out as it was planned and the Government had hastened slowly, it might gradually have taught people how to produce bacon which would have been right up to standard and as steady in standard as the Danish bacon; but, in rationing it in this way, you will be liable to get an unpopularity attached to English bacon which will make it little likely that, when all this stuff comes on to the market, it will find a sale.
These things being liable to happen, particularly if you desert your own scheme, I say that the Government will more and more be bound to do two things. They will be bound to standardise demand by rationing what each family is to consume. That is the only way to keep demand up to the supplies that you will be putting on to the market. Then they will be tempted—I do not say this Government will be, but it is the only logical outcome of these ideas—more and more to rationalise the output of farms and to treat farms as if they were factories, which they are not. Nothing will prevent the fanner, as things are at present, rushing into the particular things which the Government are helping by these schemes of checking imports, or whatever it may be. They will increase the thing on which there is most check, and, on the analogy of this scheme, you will never be able to ration them down. Here was a case in which you ought to have said, "The scheme only presupposes a very slow and moderate increase, and we will stick to that," instead of taking everything as it was offered at practically one bite.
That means that they contemplate that the farmers are to be allowed to rush into whatever form of production which for the moment, owing to one scheme or another, happens to be the most profitable. The only way in which that can be controlled is by putting farmers under
factory regulations as to what they may produce, when they may produce it, to whom they may sell it, and what price they may accept. That is not a thing which English farmers will like at all, and it is not an easy thing to do. Farms vary in different areas according to whether the aspect is north or south, and according to the district and county. To industrialise farming in the way that these schemes will necesitate will be extraordinarily difficult. Therefore, to put it bluntly, as the Government have already departed entirely in important particulars from their own marketing report, which seemed to me to be likely to work, and have produced this scheme which is certain to work badly, I shall divide against this Order.

6.37 p.m.

Mr. PETHERICK: My right hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Sir F. Acland) said that he, unfortunately, could not be in more than two places at once, and I have a suspicion that he was at a meeting at which a decision was to be taken as to which of two places he wished to be in.

Sir F. ACLAND: I explained that I had to be in the chair at the Dental Board of the United Kingdom which was dealing with discipline cases up to 6 o'clock.

Mr. PETHERICK: I am sure that both meetings would have been equally painful. The kind of speech which the right hon. Gentleman has made is the kind which we have been accustomed to hear from those benches, not only in this Parliament but almost for generations. We are accustomed to hear from them purely destructive criticism of any progressive Government. We rarely hear any constructive criticism. I have listened to speeches from the right hon. Member for Darwen (Sir H. Samuel)—a very brillian brain, but a purely destructive brain, because he has never any

solution to offer for anything except very occasionally a theory which has been discarded because it has been unsuccessful. I refer to public works. My right hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall objected to the control of imports being imposed first. Surely the pig scheme was in operation for a considerable time before the control of imports was imposed, and it was obviously necessary, in the opinion of hon. Members supporting the Government, to impose that regulation, because otherwise the whole scheme was doomed to failure. If you are trying to carry through a difficult scheme of reorganisation, you cannot possibly allow the risk of the whole scheme being utterly wrecked by dumping from abroad.

My hon. Friend the Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. D.Mason) seemed to take exception to paragraph 6 of the Order which refers to the licensee being subject to such conditions as the Board of Trade deem proper. I do not know what system he would suggest instead of it. He said something about control by the House of Commons. I do not know whether he imagines that the House of Commons is going to examine every licence that is granted. It would be impossible to carry on any such method as he supposed. I welcome the scheme, for I believe that it will ultimately be of great benefit to the farmers. It is necessary, therefore, to impose such regulation of imports as we are now proposing. Many farmers have approached me, in common with most hon. Members who sit for agricultural divisions, with this and that complaint, but it is obvious that any scheme in its infancy like this must have flaws which only time will prove, and I believe that it will prove that the scheme will be of great benefit to the agricultural industry, and particularly to the pig industry.

Question put.

The House divided: Ayes, 239; Noes, 53.

Division No.307]
AYES
[6.43 p.m.


Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel
Balfour, George (Hampstead)
Blindell, James


Attaint, Samuel Vyvyan T. (Leeds, W.)
Balfour, Capt. Harold (I. of Thanet)
Borodale, Viscount


Agnew, Lieut.-Com. P. G.
Banks, Sir Reginald Mitchell
Bottom, A. C.


Allen, Lt.-Col. J. Sandeman (B'k'nh'd.)
Parclay-Harvey, C. M.
Boulton, W. W.


Anstruther-Grav, W. J.
Barrle, Sir Charles Coupar
Bowyer, Capt. Sir George E. W.


Astor, Viscountess (Plymouth, Sutton)
Barton, Capt. Basil Kelsey
Boyce, H. Leslie


Atholl, Duchess of
Beauchamp, Sir Brograve Campbell
Bralthwalte, J. G. (Hillsborough)


Bailey, Eric Alfred George
Benn, Sir Arthur Shirley
Briscoe, Capt. Richard George


Bailile, Sir Adrian W. M.
Birchall, Major Sir John Dearman
Broadbent, Colonel John


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Blaker, Sir Reginald
Brocklebank, C. E. R.


Brown, Col. D. C. (N'th'l'd., Hexham)
Hore-Belisha, Leslls
Ramsay, T. B W. (Western Isles)


Brown, Brig.-Gen. H.C.(Berks., Newb'y)
Hornby, Frank
Ramsbotham, Herwald


Buchan-Hephurn, P. G. T.
Horsbrugh, Florence
Ramsden, Sir Eugene


Burgin, Dr. Edward Leslie
Honiara, Tom Forrest
Ratcllffe, Arthur


Butler, Richard Austen
Howltt, Dr. Alfred B.
Reed, Arthur C. (Exeter)


Butt, Sir Alfred
Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney,N.)
Reid, David 0. (County Down)


Cadogan, Hon. Edward
Hume, Sir George Hop wood
Reid, James S. C. (Stirling)


Campbell-Johnston, Malcolm
Hunter, Dr. Joseph (Dumfries)
Reid, William Allan (Derby)


Caporn, Arthur Cecil
Hurst, Sir Gerald B.
Robinson, John Roland


Cazalet, Capt. V. A. (Chlppenham)
Jackson, Sir Henry (Wandsworth, C.)
Rosbotham, Sir Thomas


Chamberlain Rt. Hn. Sir J A.(Blrm, W)
James, Winq-Com. A. W. H.
Ross, Ronald D.


Chapman, Col. R.(Houghton-le-Spring)
Jamieson, Douglas
Ross Taylor, Walter (Woodbridge)


Chapman, Sir Samuel (Edinburgh, S.)
Jennings, Roland
Runge, Norah Cecil


Clarke, Frank
Jesson, Major Thomas E.
Russell, Hamer Field (Sheffield,B'tsida)


Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D.
Jones, Lewis (Swansea, West)
Salmon, Sir isldore


Collins, Rt. Hon. Sir Godfrey
Ker, J. Campbell
Salt, Edward W.


Colville, Lieut.-Colonel J.
Kerr, Lieut-Col. Charles (Montrose)
Sanderson, Sir Frank Barnard


Copeland, Ida
Knight, Holford
Sassoon, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip A. G. D.


Courthope, Colonel Sir George L.
Knox, Sir Alfred
Scone, Lord


Craddock, Sir Reginald Henry
Lambert, Rt. Hon. George
Shakespeare, Geoffrey H.


Crooks, J. Smedley
Law, Richard K. (Hull, S.W.)
Shaw, Helen B. (Lanark, Bothwell)


Crookshank, Capt. H. C. (Gainsb'ro)
Lees-Jones, John
Shaw, Captain William T. (Fortar)


Croom-Johnson, R. P.
Leighton, Major B. E. P,
Shepperson, Sir Ernest W.


Cruddas, Lieut.-Colonel Barnard
Lennox-Boyd, A. T.
Simon, Rt. Hon Sir John


Davies, Edward C. (Montgomery)
Levy, Thomas
Sinclair, Col. T. (Queen's Unv'Belfast)


Davies, Maj. Geo. F.(Somerset,Yeovil)
Lindsay, Kenneth Martin (Kilm'rnock)
Skelton, Archibald Noel


Denman, Hon. R. D.
Lister, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip Cunliffe
Smith, Louis W. (Sheffield, Hallam)


Denville, Alfred
Liewellin, Major John J.
Smith, R. W. (Ab'rd'n & Kinc'dine,C.)


Despencer, Robertson, Major J. A. F.
Lloyd, Geoffrey
Somervell, Sir Donald


Dickle, John P.
Locker-Lampson, Rt. Hn.G.(Wd. G'n)
Soper, Richard


Doran, Edward
Loder, Captain J. de Vere
Spears, Briqadier-General Edward L.


Dower, Captain A. V. G.
MacAndrew, Lieut.-Col. C. G.(Partick)
Spencer, Captain Richard A.


Dugdale, Captain Thomas Lionel
MacAndrew, Capt. J. O. (Ayr)
Spens, William Patrick


Duncan. James A. L. (Kensington, N.)
MacDonald, Rt. Hon. J. R. (Seaham)
Stanley, Lord (Lancaster, Fylrtc)


Dunglass, Lord
MacDonald, Malcolm (Bassetlaw)
Stanley, Hon O. F. C. (Westmorland)


Edmondson, Major A. J.
McEwen, Captain J. H. F.
Stewart, J. H. (Fife, E.)


Elliot, Rt. Hon. Walter
McKle, John Hamilton
Stones, James


Elmley, Viscount
McLean, Dr. W. H. (Tradeston)
Storey, Samuel


Emmott, Charles E. G. C.
Macoherson, Rt. Hon. Sir Ian
Strauss, Edward A.


Emrys-Evans, P. V.
Magnay, Thomas
Strickland, Captain W. F.


Entwistle, Cyril Fullard
Maltland, Adam
Stuart, Lord C. Crlchton-


Erskine, Lord (Weston-super-Mare)
Manningham-Butler, Lt.-Col. Sir M.
Sueter, Rear-Admiral Murray F.


Essenhinh, Reginald Clare
Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.
Summersby, Charles H.


Falle, Sir Bertram G.
Martin, Thomas B.
Sutcliffe, Harold


Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst
Mayhew, Lieut.-Colonel John
Thomas, Rt. Hon. J. H. (Derby)


Fraser, Captain Ian
Meller, Sir Richard James
Thomson, Sir Frederick Charles


Fremantle, Sir Francis
Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)
Thorp, Linton Theodore


Galbraith, James Francis Wallace
Milne, Charles
Titchfield, Major the Marquess of


Gauit, Lieut.-Col. A. Hamilton
Mitcheson, G. G
Todd, A. L. S. (Kinqswinford)


Gillett, Sir George Masterman
Morgan, Robert H.
Touche Gordon Cosmo


Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John
Morrison, William Shephard
Train, John


Gluckstein, Louis Halle
Munro Patrick
Ward, Lt.-Col. Sir A. L. (Hull)


Glyn, Major Ralph G. C.
Natl, Sir Joseoh
Ward, Irene Mary Bewick (Wallsend)


Goff, Sir Park
Nation, Brigadier-General J. J. H.
Ward, Sarah Adelaide (Cannock)


Goodman, Colonel Albert W.
Newton, Sir Douglas George C.
Wardlaw-Mllne, Sir John S


Gower, Sir Robert
North, Edward T.
Warrcnder, Sir Victor A. G.


Granville, Edgar
Nunn, William
Weymouth, Viscount


Grattan-Dovie, Sir Nicholas
O'Neill, Rt. Hon. Sir Hugh
Whvte, Jardine Bell


Gretton, Colonel Rt. Hon. John
Palmer, Francis Noel
Williams, Herbert G. (Croydon, s.)


Grimston, R. V.
Peake, Captain Osbert
Wills, Wilfrid D.


Gritten, W. G. Howard
Pearson, William G,
Wilson, Clyde T. (West Toxteth)


Guest, Capt. Rt. Hon. F. E.
Peat, Charles U.
Windsor-Clive. Lieut.-Colonel George


Guinness, Thomas L. E. B.
Penny, Sir George
Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl


Hacking, Rt. Hon. Douglas H.
Percy, Lord Eustace
Wise, Alfred n


Hanbury, Cecil
Petherick, M.
Withers, Sir John James


Hartland, George A.
Peto, Sir Basil E. (Devon, B'nstaple)
Womersley, Walter James


Haslam, Henry (Horncastle)
Peto, Geoffrey K.(W'verh'pt'n,Bllston)
Young, Rt. Hon. Sir Hilton (S'v'noakf)


Headlam, Lieut.-Col. Cuthbert M.
Pickford, Hon. Mary Ada



Hellgers, Captain F. F. A.
Potter, John
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.


Hills, Major Rt. Hon. John Walter
Procter, Major Henry Adam
Commander Southby and Dr,


Hoare, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir S. J. G.
Raikes, Henry V. A. M.
Morris-Jones


NOES


Acland, Rt. Hon. Sir Fracis Dyke
Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)
Hall, George H. (Merthyr Tydvil)


Attlee, Clement Richard
Dobbie, William
Hamilton, Sir R. W. (Orkeney & Zetl'nd)


Banfield, John William
Edward, Charles
Harris, Sir Percy


Batey, Joseph
Evans, R. T. (Carmarthen)
Hicks Ernest George


Bernays, Robert
Foot, Dingle (Dundee)
Holdsworth, Herbert


Bevan, Aneurin (Ebbw Vale)
Foot, Isaac (Cornwall, Bodmin)
Jenkins, Sir William


Cocks, Frederick Seymour
George, Megan A. Lloyd (Anglesea)
Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)


Cove William G.
Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)
Jones J. J. (West Ham. Silvertown)


Cripps, Sir Stafford
Grenfell, David Rees (Glamorgan)
Lansbury, Rt Hon. George


Daggar, Geroge
Griffith, F. Kingsley (Middlesbro'W.)
Lawson, John James


Davies, David L. (Pontypridd)
Griffithss, T.(Monmouth, Pontypool)
Leonard, William




Lunn, William
Rea, Waiter Russell
William, Thomas (York, Don Valley)


Macdonald, Gordon(Ince)
Salter, Dr. Alfred
Wilmot, John Charles


McEntee, Valentine L.
Samuel, Rt. Hon. Sir H.(Darwen)
Wood, Sir Murdoch Mckenzie (Banff)


McKeag, William
Sinclair Maj. Rt. Sir A.(C'thness)
Young Ernest J. (Middlesbrough, E.)


Mander, Nell (Glasgow, Govan)
Tinker, Joseph



Mander, Geoffrey le M.
White, Henry Graham
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Mason, David M. (Edinburgh, E.)
Williams Edward John (Ogmore)
Mr. John and Mr. Groves.


Parkinson, John Allen
William, Dr. John H. (Llanelly)

Resolved,
That the Bacon (Import Regulation) Order, 1933, dated the seventh day of November, nineteen hundred and thirty—three, made by the Board of Trade under the Agricultural Marketing Act, 1933, a copy of which was presented to this House on the eighth day of November, nineteen hundred and thirty—three, be approved.

SEA-FISHING INDUSTRY ACT, 1933.

6.52 p.m.

Dr. BURGIN: I beg to move:
That the Sea-Fishing Industry (Regulation of Landing) Order, 1933, dated the fifteenth day of August, nineteen hundred and thirty—three, made by the Board of Trade under the Sea-Fishing Industry Act, 1933, a copy of which was presented to this House on the seventh day of November, nineteen hundred and thirty—three, be approved.
This Order consists of a Preamble and eight operative paragraphs, with a detailed Schedule in two parts. Paragraph 1 deals with prohibition, paragraph 2 applies the Customs Consolidation Act, 1876, paragraph 3 shows that the licences are revocable and subject to conditions, paragraph 4 deals with permission, paragraph 5 with the powers of authorised persons, paragraph 6 with definitions, paragraphs 7 and 8 with further definitions and the Title, and the Schedule contains the allocations of quantity as between foreign countries for the remainder of the current year and for the year 1934. The House will understand that the Schedule is in two parts because of the desire to work the scheme from the calendar year, and so quantities have been agreed and adjusted to 31st December next in Part I of the Schedule, and quantities for the whole year in Part II. In the Bacon Order, with which the House has just dealt, no specific quantities were allocated among the different countries, but in the case of fish it has been possible to arrange with the different countries the actual permitted maximum quantities.
The House will recollect that the object of the Sea-Fishing Industry Act, 1933,
was to save from collapse an industry so seriously depressed that a large proportion of that industry had for some time been working at a loss. Wholesale prices of fish had been so low as to be unremunerative to producers; the supplies of fish were greater than the markets could absorb. The Act aimed at improving prices at the ports by restricting supplies, and it was an essential part of the scheme to impose a restriction on imports, so that there should be no risk that the efforts of the home industry would be nullified by increased importations from Continental countries. In dealing with the home supplies an effort was made to improve the type of fish coming on to the home market by excluding those classes of fish which were the least desirable. Very small fish which were immature, and fish from Northern waters, which arrive in poor condition and depress the general level of prices, were to be excluded.
The Sea-Fishing Industry Act was a Measure which had, to a very large extent, been worked out with the general agreement of those concerned. Those in the home industry were quite prepared to accept restrictions on operations in return for receiving some security against the risk of increased importation from abroad, and, broadly speaking, foreign countries, with whom the friendliest relations were preserved, accepted the import restrictions in view of benefits conferred by other restrictive measures.
The intention of the Government was to restrict foreign landings to 90 per cent, of the average amount imported over three years. The three years' average, applied, as hon. Members know, to other matters, was adopted for regulating importations of foreign fish. Accordingly, the Board of Trade, under the Act, were given power by Section 1 to make an Order regulating the landing of sea-fish other than from boats registered in the United Kingdom and landed for the first time at ports of the United Kingdom; but no Order was to be made unless Orders had first been made under Sec-
tions 2, 3 and 4 of the Act. Those Orders, dealing with immature sea-fish, with restrictions on fishing in Northern waters and with the size of nets, have already been made, and copies can, of course, be obtained. Those Orders were made on 29th July, 1933, and became operative on 1st August. It is not necessary to describe those Orders in detail, but I am telling the House that those Orders have been made because they were a condition precedent to the Order which I am now asking the House to approve.
The intention of the Order is quite clear. It is to carry out Section 1 of the Sea-Fishing Industry Act. I do not think it is necessary to go through the articles of the Order in any greater detail, unless questions are raised in Debate, but the operation and the effect of the Order must, of course, be a subject of interest. The Order has, so far, worked extremely smoothly, and it is the Government's hope and expectation that it will continue to do so. The Order has been in force for a little under three months, and it is, therefore, too early to judge of the effects on the industry and the trade generally. A much longer experience would be required before any general review would be permissible. But the object was to bring about such an increase in the wholesale price of fish at the ports as would enable a reasonable profit to be made by owners of British fishing-boats. A comparatively small increase, of the order of 1/2d.per lb., is all that was desired, and it is believed that this increase can be brought about without any appreciable rise in retail prices. The cost of packing, transport and 'marketing of a perishable commodity like fish is very high, and the prime cost of the fish constitutes only a very small fraction of the price charged to the consumer.
It is not yet possible to see whether the expectations as to the effects of the Order will be realised. Supplies and prices of fish are subject to great fluctuations. We have had a very hot summer, with increased supplies and a decrease in demand, followed by a very stormy October with decreased supplies and an increased demand, but the position to-day gives no ground for any disappointment or misgiving. The average price of white fish in England and Wales in July, be-
fore the Measure came into force, was 15s. 11d. per cwt.—the lowest figure in July for many years. In August, the average price was 19s. 7d.; in September, 19s. 6d.; and in October, 25s. 5d. The figures for 1932 and 1933, month by month, form a very interesting comparison.

Sir MURDOCH McKENZIE WOOD: Have you the Scottish figures?

Dr. BURGIN: These are for England and Wales; I will find the Scottish figures for the hon. Gentleman in a moment. While these figures indicate a better position from the point of view of the fishing industry, retail prices have remained about normal. In July last, the retail price of fish was about 93 per cent, above the 1914 figure. In October that figure had reached 96 per cent., but the index figure for all articles of food showed an increase between July and October, so that that upward movement of prices cannot be regarded as attributable to the effect of the Order. There is no support given by the figures to the gloomy forecasts of the opponents of the Bill who resisted the proposals on the ground that the price of fish to the consumer would be increased.
I have a statement of amounts licensed from each of the countries principally concerned up to 4th November, and the balances available for import during the remainder of the present year. The balances are available for import during a period of eight weeks. Sweden has entirely exhausted her quota; Norway and Denmark have drawn heavily on theirs. This relates to white fish only, and not to herring. On the other hand, several other countries have only sent in light supplies; these are principally countries on the Gold Standard affected by the unfavourable exchanges. The total quantity licensed was about 250,000 cwt. for the first 11 weeks, and that leaves over 500,000 cwt. for the remaining eight weeks of the year. It seems likely, therefore, that the whole of the quotas allotted to foreign countries will not be filled. The restrictions imposed under the Act primarily affect the trawling industry— and, of course, I need not in the House of Commons draw the distinction between demersal and pelagic fish. Supplies in September were higher than last year; those for October were substantially
lower, but weather conditions are usually responsible for these fluctuations in the early autumn. I have these tables for importations of fish for periods of time, but I do not think for the moment that I need trouble the House with those details.
There has been very little criticism of the Order. Very few difficulties have been met with. The countries who export fish to this country are themselves putting in hand control of their own exports, and it is anticipated that as these arrangements become operative a more even spread of supplies over the quota periods will be secured. No shortage is likely; any deficiency in total supplies can be made good by increased supplies from other sources. It was thought that these import restrictions might, perhaps, he ineffective, but that has not been shown to be the case. We had to work in agreement with other countries, and it is very satisfactory to be able to report that that agreement was easily and promptly secured. Our markets are becoming more attractive; there is definitely an improvement in the prices at the ports; heart has been put into the industry, and the fact that this industry —a very natural and necessary one for the country—had reached so low a level, and has now been taken in hand and reorganised, has resulted in orders being placed for the building of new trawlers and men being taken on in the trade instead of being discharged, and the whole position is considerably better than it was before this Act was introduced. 1 ask the House to approve the Order.

7.5 p.m.

Mr. T. WILLIAMS: If ever a speech was made in the House that would satisfy the House that there was no need for the Order at all, it was the speech of the hon. Gentleman. He tells us, first of all, that the Order has not been in existence for three months. He proceeds to tell us that the quotas allowed to every country have not been filled; that there were heavy supplies during the summer and short prices, short catches in the autumn with high prices and a heavy demand, and that things have worked out so marvellously—but not because of the Order; that there was really no need for the Order at all. When the hon. Gentleman proceeds to tell us that orders
have been put in hand for new fishing trawlers, that there is more heart in the industry, that prices have not moved and all things are as they were, and that all these marvellous things have happened as a result of nothing happening, it is really very mysterious, and only one so capable as the hon. Gentleman could get away with a speech of that description. The hon. Member talks about the gloomy prophets upon this side of the House when the Bill was going through. None of our prophecies have been fulfilled. Then he proceeds to tell us why our prophecies have not been fulfilled. Things have not been at all normal from the commencement. He tells us, for instance, that the trawler owners only require a halfpenny a pound increase to make their industry a paying proposition, and he proceeds to tell us that the retail prices have scarcely moved, and yet there is this wonderful, this alarming prosperity—all due to the hon. Gentleman and to this Order, which has had no effect at all.
The hon. Member must know that the opposition which came from these benches in the early stages of the Bill was not because we were not anxious to see the fishing industry made to pay. What I and my colleagues said at that time I repeat to-day: that there is a very definite relationship between the fisherman and the mine worker as far as the danger of their industries is concerned. If any particular workman is entitled to a decent remuneration, surely it is the man who works on the high seas or the man who works in the bowels of the earth. I wish, therefore, to see that they derive a decent remuneration from their work. That, however, was the direct object of our opposition. When we invited the Government to embody as part of the Bill some definite guarantee that the share fishermen should enjoy part of any benefits that accrued as a result of the passing of the Measure, we were denied. When we suggested to the Government that certain conditions of labour on the ships ought to be imposed—not because we, claiming to be experts, said so, but because commissions had previously declared that these changes were necessary—nothing was done.
Then, again, we say with regard to fish—and we say it with regard to bacon or, indeed, any other single commodity —that it is a false policy to start solving a problem by the simple process of organ-
ising scarcity. That, we suggest, is not the means of restoring prosperity to the fishing industry, to the agricultural industry or, in fact, to any other industry. What we said at that time we repeat at this moment. If the sales of fish from the port to the retailer and the dealer had been organised, I am pretty certain that I can speak for my party when I say that we should have given the Government any support in any steps they cared to take to organise efficiently and effectively the sales of fish from the trawler to the retail salesman. That is really the basis of all our opposition during the passing of the Measure. The hon. Gentleman tells us that imports have decreased slightly and that certain other things have happened, all of which tend to give heart to the trawler fishermen. All that is true, and I hope that the Sea Fishing Committee, once they get to work, will be so effective in their persuasion of the trawler owners that these will see to it that not only do the share fishermen receive any benefits which accrue from this policy when applied, but that the safety of their lives and their limbs are cared for by improving the conditions of the ships, be they old or new.
I asked a question of the President of the Board of Trade on Monday relating to wholesale and retail prices of fish for two periods, 31st July and 31st October. He told us that the average wholesale prices of haddock at the end of July were 3s. l0d. a stone and at the end of October 5s. 5d.—a 40 per cent, increase. Cod, of which the hon. Gentleman knows something, at the end of July was 3s. 11d. a stone and at the end of October 5s. 2d. a stone, an increase of approximately 33½ per cent. Plaice cost 7s. 6d. at the end of July and 11s. 4d. at the end of October, an increase of approximately 50 per cent. It may very well be that the difference in the season is to some extent responsible for the change in those prices. Therefore, merely to make a comparison between a midsummer and an autumn price will not be strictly fair, either to one section of the community or to the other, but I am informed that the price of cod has increased within recent weeks —that on a comparison between the figures this year and those for last year at the same date it has increased from 8d. to 1s. 2d. a lb.; hake, from Is. 2d, to la. 6d.; skate, from 10d. to 1s. 2d. Those
are retail prices. Halibut has increased from Is. per lb. to 2s. 6d. per lb. That is the figure I have here, taken from a Sunday newspaper of last Sunday. It was not the "Daily Herald." In any case, the prices are there, and what I want to know, if the hon. Gentleman can tell us, is to what extent if any the Sea Fishing Committee, examining the variation in price paid to the trawler at the port, the price charged at Billingsgate and the price charged by retailers, found any real margin between them that ought to be reduced, and whether the Committee can bring about that reduction. We shall not reduce consumption, which, again, would create a position in which the second state would be worse than the first. We should be very happy to see what the result of the Committee's inquiry is.
I should also like the Committee to explain why a herring, for instance, costs 6d. to a customer in the House of Commons Dining-room or in the London restaurants while the herring fishing fishing industry is almost compelled to close down altogether. At the same time as the House of Commons charges 6d. for a herring and many restaurants charge a similar figure, whole fleets of herring boats are laid up and the herring industry is almost closed down. There is a duty for the Sea Fishing Committee, and it is because the Sea Fishing Committee was not set to work to reorganise sales completely before the Government started to organise scarcity that we opposed the Fishing Bill. For the same reason we should be justified in opposing the Order to-day, unless and until the Government can satisfy the Opposition that they are more interested in real reorganisation of the sale of fish than they are in organising scarcity. Tens of thousands of people get fish only from the fish-and-chips shop, and that luxury only once a night or once a week. I am as anxious as any Member of the Government to see the fishing industry prosperous, but this Order is directed towards the organisation of scarcity instead of organising in order to make use of the products of the fishing industry.

7.17 p.m.

Sir A. SINCLAIR: I approach this question from the same standpoint as the hon. Member has just described—that of
the real interest of the fishing industry, which cannot possibly hope to return to any measure of prosperity, if prices are artificially forced up far above their natural level, and above the capacity of consumers to pay. But that was never the principal criticism which I made upon the Bill, and I was not one of the critics, to whom the Minister referred in introducing this Order this afternoon, who rested their case on the probability of a sharp rise in retail prices. I was surprised to hear him refer to the prices paid for fish at the ports as a matter of very little consequence in the retail prices of fish. He referred to the profits of the retailer, the port salesman and the inland salesman, and described the prices of the fish at the port as a very small part of the total retail price of fish. That is contrary to the findings of the Food Council, who pointed out that the profits of the retailer, the port salesman and the inland salesman taken together, amount to only one halfpenny in the pound. On page 25 of their report they point out the importance, in comparing retail prices with prices at the ports, of a number of factors which enter into price-structure at the port. There is, for example, the great and inevitable waste in handling the fish. They mention the evidence given by a body, the authority of which the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade would be the first to recognise, the Luton Co-operative Society, who pointed out that of a consignment of 60 lb. of fish costing 5s. 6d. per stone, or about 4¾d. per lb., cleaning and gutting resulted in only 39 lb. of fish suitable for retail sale at a retail price of 7¼d. a pound instead of the 4¾d., an increase of more than 50 per cent.
The price of fish at the port, far from being a factor which is usually stressed too much, is one, the importance of which is not fully realised by people who do not searchingly analyse the price-structure of fish. I never said that it was going to cause a rise in the retail price of fish. On the contrary my criticism of the Bill on the Third Reading was that if the limits suggested by the Minister in his speech were observed, it would be nugatory in its effects. That was what I said, and I gave reasons. I pointed out that the Minister told us that the restriction was to be one of 10 per cent. on the average
of imports for the last three years. This was not an industry which was being swamped under by foreign imports. Foreign imports have for several years been declining, and if they were going to be equal in the forthcoming year to the average of the past three years, we should import a larger quantity of fish in the forthcoming year than we did last year. In fact, as the hon. Member who has just spoken has pointed out, what we anticipated has happened. The effect of this Act, and of the Order which we are now discussing and which is made under the Clause 1 of the Act, has been nugatory.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade compared in his speech the prices in August and September with the prices in July, and when the hon. Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams) went further, and showed how very substantial the rise in retail prices was of particular fish, comparing July with August and September, and adding that it was perhaps unfair to compare a summer month with an autumn month, the Parliamentary Secretary, who had himself instituted the comparison in his speech, cheered with relief. If that had been a true comparison it would have shown a startling rise in the retail price of fish, but, of course, it is not a true comparison. The true comparison is between September of this year and September of last year. The Act was introduced by the Minister of Agriculture on the grounds that it was intended to raise prices, and that was the only defence and the only case which he put forward for it. He put it forward in the very strongest terms. He showed that the price of fish at the Port of London had fallen below the remunerative level and even below the replacement level. He said:
We have to deal with facts as they are. With the danger of widespread unemployment, with the danger that an industry vital, if any industry is vital, to the life of the country may founder while we are talking about it, we must be ready to take immediate steps."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 27th June, 1933; col. 1345, Vol. 279.]
The steps which the Government took were the Order which we are discussing to-day. Only a few weeks ago at Grimsby, the Minister of Agriculture had to admit that, in spite of all this trumpeting about the Act, those who said that it would be nugatory were right and that the price of fish in Sep-
tember was down as compared with September of last year. [Interruption.] I have the speech here. The Minister admitted it, and hon. Members can look at the speech if they like and at the reports of the speech. It was printed in the newspaper. The price of fish was lower in September of this year than it was in September of last year.

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for SCOTLAND (Mr. Skelton): I suggest that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman might extend his inquiry to October and August.

Sir A. SINCLAIR: I will very willingly pursue it now, and I will ask the hon. Member if he will give us the figures for October. They have not yet been published. I am only referring to a speech which was made by the Minister of Agriculture in Grimsby. The hon. Member may be able to show that in October prices were up as compared with October last year, but in September they were down. In August they may also have been down. It only shows that the fortunes of this industry are fluctuating, as they always are, from month to month with the seasons, the weather and the markets. We all know that October was a month of great storms and, of course, the supply of fish was short, and the price was bound to go up. We do not really need to ask for the figures for October. In a normal month like September it is clear, from the statement of the Minister of Agriculture, that the prices of fish in this September were lower than they were in September of last year.
I certainly warned the House on the Third Reading of the Act that if prices were forced up at the port, I feared that the effect on the retail price, and especially the retail price of fish in fried-fish shops, where 50 per cent, of the fish is sold, would be immediate. That has not yet been proved, because wholesale prices at the ports have not been raised by this Order. Another reason why we, on these benches, strongly objected to the Act and object equally to the Order made under it, is that there is no reform of the marketing system, and especially of that abuse from which the inshore fisherman —whose plight is now far worse than that of the trawler fisherman, on whose behalf the Act was mainly designed—
suffers so badly. The abuse from which the inshore fisherman suffers is that salesmen act as merchants on their own behalf, and also as commission salesmen on behalf of port wholesale merchants. That is an abuse which was pointed out by the Addison Committee, and it is urgent that it should be dealt with.
We object strongly to the power, which this Order gives to the Ministers concerned, of totally or partially prohibiting the import of an important article of food for the people and a raw material to important export industries, particularly the dried fish industry of Aberdeen. We think that such powers ought not to be entrusted to any Government Department. We object to it also because we believe that it is inconsistent with the main theme of economic policy which the Prime Minister has declared. I know that there have been other declarations of policy inconsistent with that, by other Members of the Cabinet, but the main theme of economic policy, as declared by the Prime Minister, was that of clearing the channels of trade and lowering the barriers to our international trade. I am far from saying that this act was the rock upon which the World Economic and Monetary Conference split and foundered, but it was one of the acts committed by the Government during the months immediately preceding the Conference which made it impossible for our Government to give that strong lead which was necessary if the Conference were to be a success.
There is another matter to which I wish to refer if the House will bear with me for a very few minutes. It arises under this Order. We found to our astonishment that the port of Wick was closed to the importation of foreign fish. It was not in the Act of Parliament. I took some part in the discussions upon that Act, and I could remember nothing about the port of Wick and so I felt rather remiss. Then I found that it comes under one of those useful Clauses, in the Acts of Parliament which we are now passing under this new Tory Socialist regime, which says that a Government Department is empowered to do anything which is necessary in order to make a scheme work. Among the things which are considered necessary in order to make this scheme work is the closing of Wick as a port at which foreign fish could be landed. The Secretary of State
for Scotland has written me a very sympathetic letter, in which, however, he says that the figures of importation there were small. He quotes the figures for the calendar years, but, as a matter of fact, the figures which are of real importance are not the figures for the last two calendar years, but those for the last two fishing seasons.
If you take the figures for the fishing season of 1931–32, that is to say, from October, 1931, to June, 1932, and compare them with the figures for 1932–33, you will find that the imports of this foreign fish have been doubled in quantity and in value. And the important thing is that this trade is a growing trade. I have the figures here, and, if the House will allow me, I will quote them. The quantity imported from October to May, 1931–32, was 400 cwt., valued at £1,200, while during the same period in 1932–33 it was 1,000 cwt., valued at £2,400; and the landings from the local boats were growing at the same time. These foreign imports were necessary in order to create the market. [An HON. MEMBER: "Oh!"] This is an economic argument with a wider application. The hon. Member who was just going to interrupt me may perhaps remember the case of the piano makers, who pleaded for the admission of foreign pianos because they said that the buying of numbers of foreign pianos by the public increased the piano habit, and led to more people buying the pianos which they sold. That is quite true; it is a very famous proposition which was presented by the President of the Board of Trade himself.
It is very important to build up the white fish market. We have been doing it in recent years with the help of landings by local boats and landings from these Swedish and Danish boats. It represents a gallant effort by the people of Wick to regain what they have lost on the herring fishing industry. If the House approves of this measure of closing the port of Wick, it is not only condemning the fishermen and tradespeople of Wick to a very hard time, but is imperrilling the investment of public money —scores of thousands of pounds—invested in Wick Harbour with the sanction of this House. That harbour, owing to the failure of the herring fishing industry, is
now beginning to fail to pay its way, and the only way in which it can be enabled to maintain the service of its loans of public money is by not preventing it from making the most of the facilities which the harbour gives for the expansion of the trade of the port. The town has no other resources. The earnings of the herring fishermen in the last summer season, for three months'' work, were less on the average than £l a week, and some of them got nothing, and an Order of this kind, closing the port of Wick, will make it imposible for the people of Wick to find a way out of their increasing difficulties.
This Order, indeed, can do nothing to help the great herring fishing community, and the herring fishing industry is the most distressed part of the whole fishing industry, and the worst hit. I make that statement on the impartial authority of the Addison Committee. Orders which restrict the international trade in fish are bound to hinder the herring fishing industry, which depends on the export trade almost entirely. In Wick unemployment is increasing alarmingly, the resources of the town are depleted, its revenues are dwindling, while the rates are mounting under the impetus of the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, who rightly urges us, under his whip and spur, to build more houses and carry out all sorts of other improvements of that kind. If we are to be deprived of the opportunity of making the most of our harbour, we simply cannot meet our commitments; our only hope is the development of this white fishing industry.
The Secretary of State has offered to consider favourably any request which the Swedish Government may make next year to be allowed to land fish here. We seem to have gone a long way with this system of Tory Socialism when an honest Swedish fisherman cannot sail his smack into a natural harbour like that of Wick, in Caithness, without portentous diplomatic negotiations punctiliously conducted between the Swedish Government and His Majesty's Government in this country; but the Secretary of State has assured us that, if the Swedish Government does make an advance to us, he will favourably consider their request. I would ask the Under-Secretary if he will give me one further assurance, and that is that the Government will take the
initiative and let the Swedish Government and the Danish Government know that their boats may land white fish in Wick. The Secretary of State, and also the Under-Secretary, have shown a keen personal interest in the fishing industry and in the welfare of the fishermen. The Secretary of State spent a large part of the Recess travelling round and meeting representatives of the industry. Here is a practical way of helping a community which is among the hardest hit in Scotland at the present time, and I hope he will see his way to remove this restriction upon the natural development of the port of Wick. In doing so he will not only be helping that community, but doing something to safeguard the investment of public money which has been made there under the authority of the Government.

7.38 p.m.

Mr. PETHERICK: The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Caithness (Sir A. Sinclair) has put in a very powerful plea for his own constituency. I found it difficult to follow his speech in its entirety, but I look forward to reading it in the OFFICIAL REPORT to-morrow. I understood that one of his arguments was that he wishes to be able to encourage, by arrangement with the Swedish and other foreign Governments, the building up of the white fish market. That, I understand, implies building up the white fish market for foreign fish, and not for British fish. The whole object of this Order is to try to raise the price received by the fishermen, in order that they may obtain for their fish at any rate a living wage, or, in the case of share fishermen, a reasonable profit, sufficient to enable them to live. The fishing ports of the Kingdom have had an extremely bad time, as we all know, for several years. The right hon. Gentleman gave figures to show how the imports had gone up in the last two years, but I understood that in the earlier part of his speech he was trying to prove another case. He claimed there that the imports had gone down, and that, therefore, there was no possible reason for doing anything in the matter at all. He also put in a plea for the inshore fishermen, about whom I hope to say a few words on another point in a moment or two.
One hint which he threw out—he did not elaborate it very much—was to my mind rather instructive. He said that all these schemes were Tory Socialism,
but almost at the same time he claimed that the one thing which the Government had not done was to reorganise the industry from top to bottom. I think that that probably implies interference by the Government, by Act of Parliament, from before the landings right up to the time when the right hon. Gentleman actually puts the fish into his mouth when he goes, as no doubt he often does, to fish-and-chip shops. If that is not an implication of Socialism, I do not know what is. Of course, the right hon. Gentleman did not elaborate it very clearly, and I think that perhaps, in the circumstances, he was wise to leave it alone.
He said that prices had not gone up since September of last year, quoting the speech made by the Minister of Agriculture at Grimsby, and he said that a fair comparison was between September of this year and September of last year. In normal times that would be a fair comparison, but in the interim quite a lot has happened. The price of fish went down and down until the summer of this year, when the Government, by the Sea-fishing Act, took measures to help the industry. The retail price of fish did not go up as a result. It may have been fright as to how far the Government's measures would be effective that caused fish buyers to buy more, or it may have been the direct result of the Government's measures, but the fact remains that, practically from the time when the Sea-fishing Act was passed, the rise in wholesale prices has been considerable, as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade pointed out just now, while retail prices have risen scarcely at all. The right hon. Gentleman also said that, if prices went up still more, more would be imported from abroad. But it is one of the objects of this Order to restrict importation, so that, if the price should go up considerably, we may not be swamped in this country by heavy importations from abroad. Another thing that the right hon. Gentleman said was that you cannot introduce prosperity into the fishing industry by forcing up prices beyond their natural level. There is one thing that is absolutely certain, and that is that prices had dropped to something infinitely below a profitable level. I do not know whether that is what he called the natural level, but undoubtedly prices dropped away to such an extent that the fishing industry
was losing money, and people all over the country, in big and small ports alike, were having a very hard time.
The chief complaint of the hon. Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams) was that what we were trying to do was to organise scarcity. That is a very specious phrase, and it sounds incredibly sinister. What the Government are really trying to do is to see to it that the supplies at any moment are not greater than the demand, and I would point out to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Caithness, and to the hon. Member for Don Valley, that in the fishing industry a very small percentage one way or the other makes all the difference in the price. I was talking to a very prominent member of the fishing industry some little time ago. I think he was exaggerating a little, but he said that at certain times of the year 1 or 2 per cent, too much was enough to bring down the price to a surprising extent. That is to a certain extent true, although it was somewhat exaggerated. It is very difficult to assess the exact amount which the country can absorb, but it is only by this form of regulation that it is possible to do so.
The hon. Member for Don Valley also said there was apparently no need for the Bill, because prices had gone up anyhow. I think prices have gone up simply because the Orders were put into force. He also made one small mistake to the effect that the quotas had not been filled. The quota from Sweden has already been filled and those from Norway and Denmark are very nearly exhausted too, so perhaps that may also help to raise wholesale prices, which is what we want to do without raising retail prices. I can only point to what has already happened, that the retail prices have risen a very small amount, comparable with the general rise of prices owing to better trade which the Government have laid the ground for, whereas wholesale prices have risen by something like 30 or 40 per cent, in the last two or three months. A remark made by an hon. Member in talking about bacon was rather a rash one. He referred to us as "Levellers," because we wanted to level up prices. Unless my historical memory is wrong, the opponents of the "Levellers" were called "Malignants," who did not wish to do anything, who were accused of
being reactionary and unprogressive and standing for Divine right and all that sort of thing. I ask hon. Members opposite, particularly those who apparently wish to do nothing at all to make industry prosper again, to beware least they be called modern Malignants.
I congratulate the Government on bringing in this Order. This and the other two Orders will help a great deal to restore some measure of prosperity to the fishing industry. But there are two points about which I am rather doubtful. I see from paragraph 6 that the Order does not apply to lobsters, crabs, prawns, oysters, mussels, and cockles. A great many of the inshore fishing ports live to a considerable extent on those forms of shell-fish, and, although they have in a certain degree a local market, they also send their lobsters and crabs up to the London market. I believe there is a certain foreign import of those particular forms of fish, and I am rather surprised that the Order has not been extended to them because if it did, imports would be less and prices would improve, and as I said before the fishermen have had a very bad time recently.
I should also like to ask why the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics has been included in the Schedule both for this year and for next year. I am not speaking in any anti-Russian sense, because I look upon trade with Russia as entirely a business question, but we know from the Russian papers that they are extraordinarily short of food, and I can see no reason, as we have not a trade agreement with them any longer, why we have to admit fish from Russia in the quantities named in the Schedule. I remember, when my hon. Friend the Member for Grimsby (Mr. Womersley) and I arrived at Gothenburg not long ago on a visit to Sweden and were going up in the train almost the first thing that we noticed was an extremely well written article on fish in one of the Swedish newspapers. I do not know if my hon. Friend intends to take part in the Debate, but, as he is an expert on this question, I hope he has not taken a Trappist vow of silence. The article, which was many columns long, was really a plea to the Swedish Government to do something like we have been doing, because prices were very low. The Swedes are an intel-
ligent people, and they see which way the wind is blowing. I thought that article was very significant. I am very glad that we have taken measures similar to those that were recommended there. I sincerely hope that the effect of this Order will be very beneficial to the fishing trade.

7.52 p.m.

Sir M. WOOD: The hon. Member has said that we who oppose the Bill desire to do nothing to help the fishermen. That seems to me a very strange statement for any Member of the House to make with regard to any of his colleagues. I think it would be well if we started on the assumption that we are all here to do our best for the people at large and particularly for our own constituents. Those of us who have been associated with the opposition to the Bill have had more fishermen constituents than most Members. We have a special duty to look after them, and, whether we are right or wrong, our action is dictated by a desire to help them, and by nothing else. At the same time, of course, in helping them, we are helping the nation at large. We are bound to traverse many of the points raised on Second Beading and in Committee on the Bill. I should like, first of all, to touch upon a constitutional point which seems to me to be raised by this Order. We have heard a great deal in recent years about what the Lord Chief Justice calls the new despotism, the habit of handing over to Departments the power to make Orders which the House of Commons has no adequate power to review. Here we are asked to approve four Orders at one fell swoop. It is the first opportunity we have had of dealing with these other Orders which were referred to in Clauses 2, 3 and 4 of the Bill.

Mr. SKELTON indicated dissent.

Sir M. WOOD: I may be mistaken, but I think from the wording of the Order that I am not. I think that in approving the Order we are approving, by implication, of the other three Orders. We have no opportunity of amending them. We have either to take them or to leave them. The House ought to watch these things and see that we are not allowing matters of real legislation to slip through our hands and get into
the power of the Departments. The first objection that I have to the Bill is that it is, in my opinion, a trawl-owners' Bill. It was dictated to the Government by the trawl-owners. It may give them certain advantages—I am not prepared to say it does not—but I am certain that it is at the expense of other members of the fishing community. You are not serving a national purpose if you pass an Act which will do good admittedly to a certain section, if, in doing so, you do harm to another. The trawling industry, though it may not have been doing as well as it might have done in the last year or two, has been the most successful part of the fishing industry since the War. I drew attention on a previous occasion, and I draw attention again, to the Schedule that was put as an appendix to the Addison Report, showing the earnings made by trawl-fishermen, skippers and others in the different ports of the United Kingdom. If the herring fishermen had had any results like that in any one year since the War, they would have been in a much better position that they are at present.
The hon. Gentleman, in introducing the Order, also said that it was based on a Bill that was introduced by general agreement. I deny that that is so. I denied it before, and he has not given us any evidence to show that he is justified in making the claim that the Bill is put forward by general agreement. The Trawl-Owners' Federation and, no doubt, the majority of trawl-owners were satisfied with the Bill and probably thought it was going to do them good, but can he give us any evidence that the herring fishermen were ever consulted about the terms of the Bill? Has he any evidence to show that the inshore fishermen, either of Scotland or England, were consulted before the Bill was introduced, and can he give us any information as to the effect upon these different sections since the Orders were put into execution? It is all very well to say that the average price of fish has moved in a certain direction since these Orders were made and to attribute that movement of prices to the Orders which have been made, but, if that movement is all in one or two ports like Grimsby and Hull—and as a matter of fact the inshore fishermen, who are not so highly organised to protect themselves as the trawl-owners, are worse than
they were before—you have not served any great national purpose by making this Order.
It is the inshore fishermen particularly who are in need of help. They are unorganised. On the whole, they are small men and have no effective method of selling their fish. My right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Caithness (Sir A. Sinclair) has pointed out the one great drawback under which they labour at the present time. The Addison Committee drew attention to it, and to the fact that the same difficulty had existed in Paris and that the law was changed there so as to enable people who sent their produce to Paris to know that the men who dealt with it were not buying and selling at the same time. No Member in this House would agree that you could get a fair deal from a man to whom you might send fish or anything else to be sold if he was buying and selling at the same time. The whole organisation of these markets is wrong and requires looking into. The Government set up a committee and had received recommendations with regard to it. Here was a magnificent opportunity of doing something to help these men. When an Amendment was put down which might have given them an opportunity of helping the inshore fishermen the Government did not adopt it. I have a shrewd suspicion that the reason was that the trawl-owners did not want it. The trawl-owners are members of big organisations. They are not only trawl-owners but fish salesmen, ships chandlers, coal merchants and all sorts of tradesmen, and they did not want these things to be inquired into. One answer given was that the Government were going to set up another commission, as if we had not had sufficient commissions, to inquire into this matter. It was to be a sea-fishing commission. They have taken three months and a commission has not been set up yet, and it does not seem as if they are in a very great hurry to help these fishermen.
We are told that this Order has already had a marked or certain effect upon prices. It is not enough to take the prices for the whole of the country, 'although they may be very illuminating. In Scotland, where there is a larger percentage of inshore fishermen than there
is in England, you will find, taking the prices during the last few months, that in July last, when there was no Order, the prices weres down somewhat as compared with those of last year. In August the prices were up, and in September, the first full month during which the Order was in operation, prices were down. I have just been given the prices for October, and I see that they are up. You have them up and down, whether the Order was in operation or not. There is not very much as yet to be drawn from a curve which zig-zags like that, and, whatever may be the result of this Order in future, I am sure that there is nothing in its favour to be inferred from the prices before us so far.

Notice taken that 40 Members were not present;

House counted, and 40 Members being present—

Sir M. WOOD: One of the Orders which had to be made before this wider Order was one with the object of closing a certain area in the northern latitude. I should have liked my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to have given us some information as to the effect of that particular Order. It was an Order closing an area in the North which was supposed to be too fertile. We were getting too much fish from it. Some time ago it was necessary to look for new fishing grounds. They looked for them and discovered what they thought would be a very good fishing ground at Bear Island and some other places in the North. But according to the new view of things we are suffering from an over-supply of fish and have to deny ourselves the benefit of this new fertile fishing ground. I should like to know what has been the effect of preventing our ships from landing fish from that area, and also whether the fact that we have prevented our trawlers from going to that area, and that we have advertised the fact to the world, has meant that the foreigners have taken the opportunity to go to this fishing ground where they know there will be no British ships to compete with them. That Order comes up to-day and we ought to have some information as to its general effects.
Naturally, representing such a constituency as mine I approach the whole question very much from the point of view of the herring fishermen, and every-
one agrees that the herring fishermen are by far and away the worst off in the fishing industry at the present time. They have had a succession of bad years. Indeed, they have only had one good year since the War. You cannot segregate a particular section of the fishing industry and think that you can protect it from the effects of what is going on in, the other. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Pernyn and Falmouth (Mr. Petherick) spoke about the general level of prices going up or down, but he did not include herrings. If you are to speak of general methods you must include all fish and not merely white fish.

Mr. PETHERICK: Surely, it is impossible for the general level of any particular commodity such as fish, even if it embraces a large number of different sorts of fish, to rise and one particular class of fish to lag hopelessly behind.

Sir M. WOOD: I do not see why it is impossible to do that. I am inclined to think that that is exactly what it does. At any rate, the earnings from the herring fishing have gone down very much in recent years, and this year has been the worst year the herring fishing industry has experienced for many years. My point is—and this is where it becomes relevant to the discussion of this Order— that it is partly as a result of the reaction of what has been done to try to help the white fishing. There are two big sections of the fishing industry—white fishing and herring fishing. The home consumption of white fish is about 80 per cent, of the catch, but with regard to herrings the position is the reverse. We export almost the same percentage of the herrings that we catch, and if you adopt means to keep foreign white fish from being landed in this country the natural effect will be to lead foreign countries to say, "We must take steps to prevent your herrings from coming into our country." As a matter of fact, that is exactly what has happened.

Mr. SKELTON: Would the hon. Gentleman say which country has retaliated in that way?

Sir M. WOOD: The hon. Gentleman is trying to take the small part of the policy of the Government involved in this Act and to consider it apart from the larger policy. It is only part of a larger policy, and the larger policy which the Govern-
ment have been adopting has undoubtedly had the effect of producing direct retaliation against us in Germany, for instance. I do not know the general position with regard to Sweden, but I know that last year, right on top of our declaring what was to be our fiscal policy, the German Government announced that they were to take steps to promote a herring fishing industry at home. They have put a large amount of money into a fleet of new boats, and have also assisted the curing of herrings at home and are meeting with considerable success. It is a very poor look-out for the herring fishing industry at this juncture in their fortunes to know that in Germany, one of their largest markets, a competing industry is being set up with State assistance, and that on top of it they have trebled the duty on cured herrings entering Germany. Naturally, the imports into Germany have gone down, and it is reacting with disastrous results upon the whole industry. It may be that this Order and the Act as a; whole will help Grimsby and Hull.

Miss HORSBRUGH: And Dundee.

Sir M. WOOD: I do not know, although I doubt it very much. I think that the interests of Dundee in this matter do not matter very much. They have only 10 boats.

Miss HORSBRUGH: May I point out to my hon. Friend that, thanks to nothing having been done in the past, the fleet was reduced to ten, but thanks to what, is now being done there has been an increase in the fleet.

Sir M. WOOD: I trust that the hopes of my hon. Friend will be realised.

Miss HORSBRUGH: Most of them have been, in Dundee.

Mr. NEIL MACLEAN: The hopes of the people of Dundee have not been realised.

Miss HORSBRUGH: I think they have, especially in the jute trade, thanks to the Government.

Sir M. WOOD: I was speaking about the result of the attempts to help Grimsby and Hull and the effect upon my constituents. There are something like 700 drifters probably starting on their homeward journey from Yarmouth
and Lowestoft just now. I was informed by a deputation which went there a few days ago that two-thirds of them have not earned enough to make their expenses. Practically half of that fleet, which represents two-thirds of the drifters at Lowestoft and Yarmouth, come from my constituency. Their plight at the present time is due, to a very considerable extent, to the fact that the Government have gone out of their way to try and protect a particular part of the industry. That is the prime reason that I have for giving this Order my strenuous opposition. I do not believe in the whole policy of trying to restrict supplies in a matter of this kind. The Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries has said that there is an over supply of fish. I should like to know what the housewives in the East End of London and of any of the large cities of England think about the statement that there is an over supply of fish. It would be great news to them. This policy which the Government are pursuing with regard to fish has been put into force with regard to other matters. It is an ill-judged policy. It is attacking the wrong end of the question. What we ought to do is to stimulate consumption. If they would attend to the marketing of fish and other things relating to the industry they would be able to make fish cheaper, give a larger return to the fishermen and increase consumption. In that way and that way only will they bring back success to the fishing industry.

8.17 p.m.

Mr. HENDERSON STEWART: It would be unfortunate if the impression were given to this House or to the country that the views expressed by my hon. Friends on the Liberal Benches represent the general views of fishermen in Scotland. That is not so. I have the honour to represent a constituency from which several hundred men have gone to Yarmouth——

Sir M. WOOD: No.

Mr. STEWART: I can give the hon. and gallant Member figures. Those men are returning now suffering from precisely the trouble that my hon. and gallant Friend has described. With his plea for a more optimistic and more strenuous development of the herring industry I
am in entire accord. There is no one who has done more for the herring industry in Scotland than my hon. and gallant Friend and there is no one who understands it better than he, and I hope the Government, while it must disagree with many of his views, will listen with respect to his plea, which is also my plea, for a real drive to improve the position of the herring industry. But with my hon. and gallant Friend's criticism of this particular Order I do not find myself in agreement, and I feel sure that his views are not the views, generally speaking, of the Scottish fishing industry. He tried to relate herrings with white fish and trawling. I would relate them, too, but as the fishermen in my district see it, the relationship is of an entirely different character. As we see it there—and we have trawling, inshore and herring fishing—the difficulty caused through the steady contractions of the herring export market made it the more necessary to increase the white fish trade in this country.
This Order, following upon the Act, is, as we see it, designed to give more work in the increasing periods of unemployment between the herring seasons, and because of that we support the Order. I hope that the indications given by the Minister—they are mere indications and cannot be results—may be continued and that this Order and the Act may prove of value to the White Fish trade. I will say no more at this stage except to urge the House to give the Order a chance. It is too early to say how well or how badly it has done. We must give it reasonable time to prove itself, and because I would like to give a chance I support the Order.

8.20 p.m.

Mr. MACLEAN: Before taking any part in the discussion proper, I should like a little information from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade. In the Statutory Rules and Orders that we are discussing it is stated that certain Orders which must be made under Sections 2, 3 and 4 of the Act must be enforced before the House can approve of this particular Order. I should like to know when Statutory Rules and Orders 769, 770 and 771 were laid before this House.

Dr. BURGIN: The Statutory Orders to which the hon. Member refers do not require an affirmative Resolution and accordingly do not require to come before this House. They were made on the 29th July and became operative on the 1st August.

Mr. MACLEAN: I thank the hon. Member for that answer, and I would draw attention to the Sea-Fishing Industry Act, Section 8 (4) which says:
An Order of the Board of Trade under this Act shall cease to have effect from the expiration of a period of twenty-eight days from the date on which it is made, unless, at some time before the expiration of that period—
that is, the 28 days period—
it has been approved by a resolution passed by each House of Parliament, but without prejudice to anything previously done under the Order or to the making of a new Order.
The three Orders to which I have drawn attention are dated 29th July. The House adjourned on the 28th July. Accordingly, these Orders must be approved by the House.

Mr. SKELTON indicated dissent.

Mr. MACLEAN: The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland shakes his head.

Dr. BURGIN: These are not Orders made by the Board of Trade. The Section to which the hon. Member has called attention is not relevant in the least degree to these Orders. These are Orders made under other powers, and not by the Board of Trade.

Mr. MACLEAN: Then will the hon. Member explain this point? The Order which we are asked to approve now states:
Whereas by Section 1 of the Sea Fishing Industry Act, 1933 (hereinafter called 'the Act'), it is provided that the Board of Trade, after consultation with the appropriate Ministers, may by Order regulate the landing in the United Kingdom of sea fish which have not been both (a) taken by British fishing boats registered in the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man or any of the Channel Islands; and (b) brought to land in the United Kingdom without having been previously landed outside the United Kingdom, and that any such Order may contain such provisions as appear to the Board of Trade, after consultation with the appropriate Ministers, to be necessary for securing the due operation and enforcement of the scheme of regulation contained in the Order, but that no such Order shall be made unless Orders made under Sections 2, 3 and 4 of the Act are in force.
These are Orders 2, 3 and 4. I again ask: Where do the Government get sanction to proceed as they have done without coming for Parliamentary sanction? Where do they get their powers?

Dr. BURGIN: The House is entitled to have this matter cleared up. Section 1 of the Sea Fishing Industry Act provides for the Board of Trade making an Order which imposes restrictions on foreign landings. Section 8 provides that an Order made under Section 1 is to be laid before this House and there is to be an affirmative Resolution. There is no such Section in the Sea Fishing Act dealing with Orders made by the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries under other parts of the Act, under Sections 2, 3 and 4, and the only Order before the House to-night is the Order which I have moved, made by the Board of Trade under Section 1. The other Orders are Orders already made by the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries and came into force on the dates named. They do not require to come before this House under Section 8.

Mr. MACLEAN: These Orders were made on the 28th of July, and I am asking whether power is given under the Sea-Fishing Industries Act to make Statutory Rules and Orders and to put them into force without the sanction of this House. That is the claim now being made by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade.

Dr. BURGIN: Not at all. The Sea-Fishing Industry Act of 1933 is an Act to which this House gave its assent, and it gives express power to Ministers to make Orders under Sections 2, 3 and 4. The actual words in the Act are "the appropriate Ministers," and there is nothing in the Act which requires Orders made under Sections 2, 3 and 4 to follow the procedure to which Section 8 applies. Section 8 deals with the matter in a different form. It says expressly that the Orders shall be laid before the House in Subsection (2); and in Sub-section (4) of Section 8 it is expressly provided, for the protection of the consumer and for the protection of the rights of the public, that an Order made by the Board of Trade to restrict landings from abroad shall cease to have effect unless this House expressly authorises the Order by
an affirmative Resolution within the period of time set out in the section. I am afraid that the hon. Member is seeking to read into the Act something which is not there. The real point is this. The Board of Trade has very little association with the sea-fishing industry at all. For the purposes of this Act it has merely to make an Order restricting imports from abroad, just as under the Agricultural Marketing Act it has a similar power. The difference between the 1931 Act and the 1933 Act is that there is power to limit imports. The Board of Trade has that limited function; and the reason why I have troubled the House to-night is because it is the Board of Trade which makes that Order, but the whole rest of the administration is, of course, a matter for the Ministry of Agriculture. It is only Section 1 which deals with an Order to restrict; and only Section 8 which requires that Order to be affirmed. Section 2 does not.

Mr. MACLEAN: The Parliamentary Secretary is omitting to consider Subsection (2) of Section 8 which says:
Every Order made under this Act, not being an Order in Council, shall, as soon as may be after it is made, be laid before both Houses of Parliament.
That follows Sub-section (1) which says:
Where any of the provisions of this Act confers a power to make an Order
That means that any Orders made by any Minister named in the Act must be laid before Parliament. I want to know when this Order was laid before Parliament?

Dr. BURGIN: The hon. Member is asking when this Order was laid before Parliament?

Mr. MACLEAN: Yes.

Dr. BURGIN: I will inquire.

Mr. MACLEAN: I contend that there has not been sufficient time for these Orders to be laid before this House and that the whole of this discussion is entirely out of order. I contend that the particular Order we are now discussing is subject to previous Orders having been put into operation. If, therefore, no date can be shown when these Orders were laid before Parliament, as required by Sub-section (2) of Section 8, this discussion is entirely out of order.

Dr. BURGIN: These Orders were made by the appropriate Ministers on the 29th of July and became operative on the 1st of August; and they have been laid.

Mr. MACLEAN: I must object to that, and in order to get tins matter properly cleared up I should like to move that we report Progress and ask leave to sit again.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Sir Dennis Herbert): The hon. Member cannot move that Motion. He might move that the Debate be adjourned. He has put a point of Order and I quite agree he has a right to put it. As I understand— I am subject to correction and if I am wrong the hon. Member or hon. Members on the Government Bench will probably assist me—the Order now before the House is one which under the terms of the Act cannot be made unless certain other Orders under Sections 2, 3 and 4 are in operation. The point of the hon. Member for Govan (Mr. Maclean appears to be that he wants to be satisfied that the Orders made under Sections 2, 3 and 4 have complied with Section 8, Sub-section (2), which says:
Every Order made under this Act, not being an Order in Council, shall, as soon as may be after it is made, be laid before both Houses of Parliament.
He invites the Parliamentary Secretary to tell him the dates on which they were laid. The point of Order depends on whether these documents have been laid. That is a matter, of course, which hon. Members can find out from the records, and the Minister no doubt will be able to tell us the dates on which they were laid.

Dr. BURGIN: I am much obliged to you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, for the clear explanation of the position. The Orders, as I have stated, were made by the appropriate Ministers on the 29th of July and became operative on the 1st August. It was hoped that the Order regulating foreign landings under Section 1 would come into effect immediately after the other Orders, but that could not be made until the 15th of August, and the Order which I am now asking the House to approve came into operation on the 21st of August. Parliament was not in Session on the 29th of July and so the earliest date on which these Orders could be laid was the date of resumption; and
these Orders were laid on the 7th November, 1933; Sea-Fishing Industries Act—
Copy presented of Orders, dated 29th July, 1933, entitled—

(1) The Sea-Fishing Industry (Immature Sea-Fish) Order, 1933;
(2) The Sea-Fishing Industry (Restriction of Fishing in Northern Waters) Order, 1933;
(3) The Sea-Fishing Industry (Fishing Nets) Order, 1933;

by Act to lie upon the Table.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: Can the Parliamentary Secretary tell me by whom these Orders were made?

Dr. BURGIN: By the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, and they bear the signatures of officials.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: Not by the Board of Trade?

Dr. BURG IN: No. They are not under Sections under which the Board of Trade is given power.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: Then I think that the point of the hon. Member for Govan has been met. These particular Orders, not being Orders made by the Board of Trade, do not require confirmation under Section 8, Sub-section (4), in order to make them effective, but they do require to be laid before Parliament as soon as possible, and that apparently is the case as they were duly laid before both Houses of Parliament on the 7th of November.

Sir M. WOOD: I quite understand that it is necessary to lay these Orders, but may I ask whether it is necessary for these Orders to have been laid before Parliament before the subsequent Order made by the Board of Trade was made? You will notice that under the terms of this Act it is impossible to make the fourth Order, the Order by the Board of Trade, unless the other three Orders have been duly made. My point is: How is it possible to make an Order which requires three Orders to have been made and enforced before then if they cannot be en forced through not having been laid before Parliament?

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The hon. Gentleman has no doubt fortified himself by referring to the other Section of the Act, which I have not yet had time to do. Perhaps he can tell me whether there is
anything in Sections 2, 3 and 4 which prevents an Order becoming effective even before it is laid, if Parliament is not sitting.

Sir M. WOOD: Section 2 states "The appropriate Ministers may, by Order, prohibit for such period," and so on. It does not say anything at all, as far as I can see, about the Order coming into operation before it has been confirmed.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The hon. Member is now wrong.

Sir M. WOOD: I should have said before it has been laid upon the Table.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: But there is nothing to prevent its becoming effective before it is laid. The only provision with regard to its being laid is that every Order under the Act, as soon as may be after it is made, shall be laid before both Houses of Parliament. It does not say that it shall not be effective till that has been done.

Mr. T. SMITH: As there is some doubt on the point may we not ask that the Law Officers of the Crown be present to assist Ministers? I remember that in the last Parliament hon. Members now opposite lost no opportunity of pressing that the Law Officers be present whenever there appeared to be a slightest doubt with regard to the procedure of the House, and I submit that if the Law Officers are not present on a matter of this kind that is an additional reason why the House should adjourn.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The hon. Member can raise the point in debate as to the necessity or otherwise of the Law Officers being present at any time he chooses. So far as I am concerned, in regard to what is referred to me as a point of Order on this occasion, with the greatest possible respect to the Law Officers I think I should not require their assistance in deciding the point.

Mr. MACLEAN: I thought I had caught the Minister out and it has taken quite a time to prove that they are in order. Still, like a Scotsman, I have my doubts. Statements have been made that this Order is to assist the sea-fishing industry. I agree with what has been said in criticism of the Order, that it takes no cognisance whatever of a section of
the fishing industry which since the War has been the hardest hit of all. One has only to cast one's mind back a few days to the newspaper articles with sensational headlines regarding the collapse of the herring fishing season in Britain, telling us how the fishermen were faced with ruin, and how they had sent a deputation to the Prime Minister to find out what assistance could be given to them. This Act makes no provision whatever for rescuing those people from the abnormal condition in which they find themselves. I know that there is to be set up, or has been set up, a committee specified in the Act to consider certain marketing schemes. The Act was passed in July. Four months have almost gone, and during that time no committee has gone into the question, and consequently there is nothing which is likely in any way to help the fishermen who are engaged in herring fishing.
We have heard stories of the closing of Wick Harbour. There are various harbours throughout Scotland that are in such a condition, almost of ruin, that fishing boats cannot go in or out. The whole situation in Scotland is very serious. The Scottish fishermen come down south to take part in the English fishing season, just as the English fishing vessels go north for the Scottish season, and go to Ireland for the Irish season. The Scottish fishermen have come south probably expecting that the Act which was supposed to protect the industry would give it some degree of prosperity, but they have found that the Act and the three Orders that are being issued by the Minister of Agriculture afford them neither salvation nor hope. The Ministry concerned and the Board of Trade have simply been playing with many thousands of hard-working men and women, toying with them, mocking them. The Minister of Agriculture in his usual flamboyant way brought in his Fishing Industries Bill and told us quite frankly that it was a Bill for the British Trawlers' Federation. I see that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade nods his head in approval.

Dr. BURG1N: No, nods that the Minister of Agriculture had said that.

Mr. MACLEAN: All Ministers on the Front Bench hang together for fear that
they may hang separately some day. The Minister said that the Measure had received the approval of the British Trawlers Federation. The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland looks rather guilty——

Mr. SKELTON: I only wanted to make sure that I heard the hon. Member correctly.

Mr. MACLEAN: It is only necessary to turn to the OFFICIAL REPORT in order to find the statement of the Minister to the effect that he had received the approval of the British Trawlers Federation for his Measure, and apparently that was sufficient for him. No other interests were inquired into; no one made any inquiries from those engaged in the fishing industry in Scotland. The British Trawlers Federation at Grimsby apparently was the only thing that concerned the Minister. I know that Scotland has trawlers as well, but there is no Scottish Trawlers Federation, and those trawlers in Scotland who are affiliated with the British Federation get all their information through the headquarters of that Federation. But no inquiries were made from the fisher folk of Scotland as to whether they were willing to accept the conditions submitted to them in the terms of the Act. I suggest to the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland that he and his colleagues might have made some effort to protect one of the outstanding industries in Scotland. Evidently, as has happened before now to Secretaries and Under-Secretaries of State for Scotland, they have been overborne. They cannot have been overborne by any greater logical ability on the part of other Ministers. That quality cannot be attributed to people who are not Scotsmen, but at any rate they have been overborne in some manner, and they have not put up the fight in this matter which we on the other side of the Border would expect them to make.
If we are to have Orders of this kind, we ought to be told whether the benefits which the Act was supposed to contain and which were outlined to this House are going to apply to all members of the industry. It is suggested, with regard to organisation, that the Order is going to have wonderful effects when it is put into operation. But in the first place the Government ought to have
made inquiries from the consuming section of the community. They were entitled to do that. The Act itself and statements made in the House when it was passing, led people to believe that this was to be considered, not merely as a matter affecting those who fish the seas, not as affecting only the salesmen and distributors of fish but that it was also to be considered from the consumers' point of view. We were led to believe that the consumers' interests were also to be looked after, and that consumers were not going to be fined unduly, by having an excessive price placed upon the restricted article.
The whole policy of the Government has been one of restriction. I suggest that in pursuing such a policy they are trying to turn back the hands of the clock. If that is to be the policy of the Government, they will soon have to deal not only with the people who are dependent upon the presence of shoals of fish in certain parts of the sea but also with manufacturers who have installed new machinery and who find that the new machinery is producing greater quantities of goods than the market can consume. Those manufacturers will come to the Government—some have already done so—asking the Government to restrict the market in this country for them. If the House is only to concern itself with manufacturers and producers and owners of products, and is not to regard the consumers' side of the question at all, then it is high time for the consumers of the country to rebel against that attitude. When they do rise in rebellion against it they will make a clean sweep of the benches opposite—though it would not take much to make a clean sweep of them at this moment.
I ask the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland to give to those Members who come from fishing towns in the Northern part of Scotland some hope to carry back to the people there. I wish we could take the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade round some of these places and let him see the people there who have no hope in what is being done by the Government either by the Act which they have passed or by the Orders which they have laid upon the Table. We want to give these people some encouragement. I know that much cannot be done before the beginning of next year and that during December
practically all the boats in the North of Scotland are laid up. At all events we might have some definite statement from the Government giving these people the hope that with the New Year they are going to have those brighter prospects which every one likes to have at the beginning of a year. When the New Year dawns, give them hopes which will not be falsified, but will be realised in practical and lucrative results.

8.52 p.m.

Mr. SKELTON: A number of topics have been touched upon in this Debate, but next to the subject dealt with by the hon. Member for Govan (Mr. Maclean), namely the position of the herring industry—which is of doubtful relevance to the Order—the most important suggestion made is that there is in the Order something inimical to the interests of inshore fishermen. That suggestion has been made by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Banffshire (Sir M. McKenzie Wood) and repeated by my hon. Friend opposite. I do not understand on what argument such a suggestion can be made. On the assumption, which is not unsound, that this Order, following on the Act, will raise the price of white fish I cannot understand how that result can be other than good for the inshore white fisherman. I do not understand how an attempt could successfully be made to distinguish in this matter between the interest of the trawler owner and the interest of the inshore fisherman.

Sir M. WOOD: In the matter of sale.

Mr. SKELTON: I agree that the interest of the inshore white fisherman is a question of great importance to Scotland. The Government as a whole feel that one of the features of the Act and the Order is that if, as we hope, they continue to raise and maintain wholesale prices of white fish caught by British fishermen, they may offer new opportunities for the white inshore fishermen of Scotland far in excess of any they have had in the past. I do not think hon. Members who try to distinguish between the interest of the trawlers and the interest of the white fishermen and who try to make out that the interests of the white inshore fishermen are not connected with a rise in the price of fish, are doing a very good work. I think it is of the greatest im-
portance to encourage inshore fishermen in every possible way. I cannot see that it can do other than depress them when Members of the Liberal party or the party opposite make suggestions, I am sure unwittingly, which would tend to make the inshore fishermen of Scotland think that such an Order as we are moving to-night is of no avail. Those who are at present responsible for the Government of Scotland are very fully alive to the needs of the inshore fishermen. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] That is a perfectly unexceptionable phrase, which I propose to use whenever it is necessary or relevant. I would very much rather see all who are interested in fishing, all who have inshore fishermen as their constituents, helping us to encourage and forward their interests than, for reasons which I confess I cannot understand, making criticisms of the Order for which I think there is absolutely no foundation at all.
The other main criticism has been on the question of price. I do not propose to go further into that than to say that, taken as a whole, there have been signs of a rise in price since the Order was put into operation, but, as my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade said, I think with great fairness, some 2½ months or thereby is too short a period in which finally to come to a judgment on that subject. There would seem to be little doubt that to restrict foreign imports even to a figure not greatly less than the preceding figure is one which will tend to raise prices, because as the operation of the regulation with regard to the size of mesh and size of fish begins to affect the price, the restrictions upon foreign fishermen will prevent an influx, which might easily have followed. That is important, and I do not think the criticism of my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir A. Sinclair), based on the fact that the Order does not restrict the importation greatly below the figure at which it previously stood, reaches the root of the matter. Still less do I agree with my right hon. and gallant Friend's observation that in some obscure way the fate of the Economic Conference was bound up with the introduction of this Bill. I could not follow that, and I am bound to
say that I think even the humblest haddock would feel a thrill of pride if it thought it had brought to nought the consultations of every leading statesman in the world.
I listened with great sympathy, and something approaching remorse, to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman's passionate figures and facts on the situation at Wick. I felt that the picture painted by him of Wick produced a situation very much like the mother of Hamlet produced in the minds of her family on the famous occasion when she said:
Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.
That was my condition by the time the right hon. and gallant Gentleman had got to his last statement about the condition of Wick Harbour. But let his heart he at peace. We are going to let in fish. The very fleetest methods of modern communication are going to be brought into operation in order to let Denmark know that she may reintroduce into Wick any of the fish that she is allowed to import. I hope that as my right hon. and gallant Friend painted a most dreadful picture of the economic depression which the absence of these fish had caused at Wick, the reverse will be true and that there will be abounding prosperity in that northern harbour which is so well represented by him. There is only one other matter to which I would allude, and that is to the statement made by my hon. Friend the Member for Banff (Sir M. Wood) that the export of herrings was being interfered with and checked by foreign nations as a result of the Sea-Fishing Industry Act and the Orders following thereon.

Sir M. WOOD: I said the policy of which it was a part.

Mr. SKELTON: I am glad there has been that correction. I was rather afraid when he said that, because there seemed to be no foundation for it, and when he refers to Germany and her efforts to improve her own manufacture of cured herrings, I would remind him that the new German policy of increased duties and curing efforts at home was introduced in 1932, and that, so far as it had any relation to the Sea-Fishing Industry Act or to this Order, it was an extreme case of second sight.

Sir M. WOOD: I said that the duty was trebled last year.

Mr. SKELTON: In that case it was merely the effect coming before the cause, a very unusual event, and I will leave it there. Far be it from me to suggest that it is not the right and the duty of every Member of Parliament to level any criticism at any proposal of whatever Government may be in power at the moment, but I suggest that this Order does put into operation a policy which this House and Parliament have approved, that it gives a chance— nay, more than a chance—for an increase in the wholesale price of white fish, and that if that turns out to be permanently the result of this Order, it will benefit not only the trawlers but the inshore fishermen. For my part, as a Scotsman and a Scottish Member of Parliament, trying to assess the value of the various industries which Scotland now possesses, one cannot fail to realise the special importance of the inshore fisheries of Scotland, and it would be a matter of the highest advantage to that country if any act of ours should operate to improve their position.
With regard to the herring fishery, 1 entirely agree with what has been said as to its serious plight. We have so far sought to improve the condition of the herring industry by the trading agreements which we have made with certain countries. We trust that that policy is not yet complete or exhausted, and when you are dealing with an industry such as that of curing herrings, which depends on the export trade, it is obvious that its existence must depend upon what you can do by trade agreements and so forth. We have not neglected the herring industry, and we shall do everything that can be done to increase the scope and range of the agreement and to secure an increase of the export of cured herrings. The Order before us, however, deals with white fish, and I think I have said all that I need on that topic.

9.4 p.m.

Mr. RICHARD LAW: There is one point raised by the hon. Member for Banff (Sir M. Wood) upon which I would like to say a word or two. He said that this Order was conceived entirely in the selfish interests of the trawlers. On the face of it, that must be absurd, because obviously if the purely individual in-
terests of the trawling industry had been considered, the Schedules to the Order would have been something very different from what they are. In fact, as the right hon. and gallant Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir A. Sinclair) pointed out, the actual restriction of foreign-caught fish by this Order was very small indeed. If the trawler-owners had had what they would have liked the restriction would have been very much greater than it was.
My hon. Friend the Member for Banff seemed to imagine that there is a complete contra-distinction and opposition between the interests of the catching section of the trade on the one side and of the distributing section on the other, and he seems to assume that just as the-catching section would like to see a restriction on foreign-caught fish, so the distributing section would like to see coming in all the foreign-caught fish that could be absorbed on the market. I believe that to be a complete misconception, and that the distributing side of the trade does not want to see the markets of this country open to the entirely free entry of foreign-caught fish, because such free entry is 'a very disturbing influence in all the markets of this country; and it is extraordinarily difficult for the fish merchants to carry on their trade unless they have some element of stability such as is given by this Order.
There is one suggestion that I should like to make to the Government. I believe that it would be of the greatest assistance to the distributing section of the trade and to the catching section alike if it were possible, after consideration, to vary the Schedule so that the quota was allocated on some monthly or other temporary basis instead of being for a year. I believe that that would be of the greatest assistance to every side of the trade. As has been pointed out in the course of this discussion, this Order is contingent upon the operation of those other Orders under Sections 2, 3 and 4 of the Act. I realise that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland is not responsible for the other Orders, but I would ask him to suggest to the Government that when the time comes, as it will, for the Order under Section 2 to be renewed next year, the-Government should go very carefully into the effect which it has had this year. I
believe from my observations and in spite of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Caithness, that the effect of the restriction imposed under Section 2 of the Act has been on the whole good for the trade. But it is obvious that we cannot impose a very drastic restriction of that kind without causing a certain amount of dislocation.
I would ask the Government to look into the matter carefully and to see that any dislocation that has been or will be caused in future is only as much dislocation as is absolutely necessary for the proper functioning of the Act in order that it may achieve the object which it sets before it. 1 would ask the Government that when they impose the Order

next year under Section 2 of the Act they should consider very carefully whether it might not be varied, not in principle but in detail, whether, for instance, certain parts of the prohibited grounds should not be open for a certain part of the restricted period, and whether there should not be some detailed reconsideration in that respect. I would ask the Secretary of State to draw the attention of the proper Ministry to that aspect of the Fisheries Act. It is of the utmost importance that any dislocation that does come about as the result of the Act should not be unnecessary and superfluous to the attainment of the objects of the Act.

Question put.

The House divided: Ayes, 177; Noes, 47.

Division No. 308.]
AYES
[9.10 p.m.


Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel
Gauit, Lieut.-Col. A. Hamilton
Mayhew, Lieut.-Colonel John


Adams, Samuel Vyvyan T. (Leeds, W.)
Gillett, Sir George Masterman
Milne, Charles


Agnew, Lieut.-Coin. P. G.
Giuckstein, Louis Halle
Mitcheson, G. G.


Allen, Lt.-Col. J. Sandeman (B'k'nhd.)
Goodman, Colonel Albert W.
Morris-Jones, Dr. J. H. (Denbigh)


Anstruther-Gray, W. J.
Gower, Sir Robert
Morrison, William Shephard


Applin, Lieut.-Col. Reginald V. K.
Grattan-Doyle, Sir Nicholas
Most, Captain H. J.


Aske, Sir Robert William
Graves, Marjorie
Munro, Patrick


Atholl, Ducthess of
Gretton, Colonel Rt. Hon. John
Nation, Brigadier-General J. J. H.


Bailey, Eric Alfred George
Grimston, R. V.
Palmer, Francis Noel


Barclay-Harvey, C. M.
Gritten, W. G. Howard
Peake, Captain Osbert


Barrie, Sir Charles Coupar
Guest, Capt. Rt. Hon. F. E.
Pearson, William G.


Barton, Capt. Basil Kelsey
Guinness, Thomas L. E. B.
Peat, Charles D.


Beauchamp, Sir Brograve Campbell
Hacking, Rt. Hon. Douglas H
Petherick, M.


Birchall, Major Sir John Dearman
Hanbury, Cecil
Pickford, Hon. Mary Ada


Blindell, James
Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry
Potter, John


Bowyer, Capt. Sir George E. W.
Hartland, George A.
Procter, Major Henry Adam


Braithwaite, Mal. A. N. (Yorks, E. R.)
Haslam, Henry (Horncastle)
Pybus, Percy John


Braithwaite, J. G. (Hillsborough)
Headlam, Lieut.-Col. Cuthbert M.
Raikes, Henry V, A. M.


Briscoe, Capt. Richard George
Hellgers, Captain F. F. A.
Ramsay, T. B. W. (Western Isles)


Broadbent, Colonel John
Hornby, Frank
Ramsden, Sir Eugene


Brocklebank, C. E. R
Horsbrugh, Florence
Reed, Arthur C (Exeter)


Brown, Col. D. C. (N'th'l'd., Hexham)
Howard, Tom Forrest
Reid, David D. (County Down)


Brown, Brig.-Gen.H.C.(Berks., Newb'y)
Hudson, Capt. A. U. M.(Hackney,N.)
Reid, William Allan (Derby)


Buchan-Hepburn, P. G. T.
Hume, Sir George Hopwood
Richards, George William


Burgin, Dr. Edward Leslie
Hunter, Capt. M. J. (Brigg)
Robinson, John Roland


Butt, Sir Alfred
Jackson, Sir Henry (Wandsworth, C.)
Rosbotham, Sir Thomas


Caporn, Arthur Cecil
James, Wing-Com. A. W. H.
Ross, Ronald D.


Chapman, Col. R. (Houghton-le-Spring)
Jamieson Douglas
Ross Taylor, Walter (Woodbridge)


Chapman, Sir Samuel (Edinburgh. S.)
Jennings, Roland
Runge, Norah Cecil


Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D.
Jesson, Major Thomas E.
Russell, Hamer Field (Sheffield, B'tside)


Collins, Rt. Hon. Sir Godfrey
Johnston, J. W. (Clackmannan)
Salt, Edward W.


Cooper, A. Duff
Jones, Lewis (Swansea, West)
Sanderson, Sir Frank Barnard


Copeland, Ida
Ker, J. Campbell
Scone, Lord


Craven-Ellis, William
Kerr, Lieut.-Col. Charles (Montrose)
Selley, Harry R.


Crooke, J. Smedley
Law, Richard K. (Hull, S.W.)
Shakespeare, Geoffrey H.


Crookshank, Capt. H. C. (Gainsb'ro)
Leckle, J. A.
Shaw, Helen B. (Lanark, Bothwell)


Davies, Edward C. (Montgomery)
Lees-Jones. John
Shaw, Captain William T. (Fortar)


Davies, Mal. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yesvil)
Leighton, Major B. E. p.
Sinclair, Col. T.(Queen's Unv., Belfast)


Denman, Hon. R. D.
Lennox-Boyd, A. T.
Skelton, Archibald Noel


Denville, Alfred
Levy, Thomas
Slater, John


Dickie, John P.
Llewellin, Major John J.
Smith, R. W. (Ab'rd'n & Kine'dine,C.)


Doran, Edward
Lockwood, John C. (Hackney, C)
Somervell, Sir Donald


Duggan, Hubert John
Loder, Captain J. de Vere
Somerville, D. G. (Willesden, East)


Duncan, James A. L. (Kensington, N.)
Mabane, William
Soper, Richard


Dunglass, Lord
MacAndrew, Lt.-Col. C. G. (Partick)
Spencer, Captain Richard A.


Edmondson, Major A. J.
Mac Andrew, Capt. J. O. (Ayr)
Spens, William Patrick


Elliston, Captain George Sampson
MacDonald, Malcolm (Bassetlaw)
Stanley, Lord (Lancaster, Fylde)


Elmley, Viscount
McEwen, Captain J. H. F.
Stanley, Hon. O. F. C. (Westmorland)


Emrys-Evans. P V.
McKie, John Hamilton
Stewart, J. H. (Fife, E.)


Erskine, Lord (Weston-super-Mare)
McLean, Dr. W. H. (Tradeston)
Stones, James


Erskine-Bolst, Capt. C C. (Blk'pool)
Magnay, Thomas
Storey, Samuel


Essenhigh, Reginald Clare
Manningham-Buller, Lt.-Col. Sir M.
Stourton, Hon. John J.


Fuller, Captain A. G.
Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.
Strauss, Edward A.


Strickland, Captain W. F.
Wallace, John (Dunfermline)
Williams. Herbert G. (Croydon, S.)


Sueter, Rear-Admiral Murray F.
Ward, Lt.-Col. Sir A. L. (Hull)
Wills, Wilfrid D.


Summereby, Charles H.
Ward, Irene Mary Bewick (Wallsend)
Windior-Clive, Lieut-Colonel George


Thomson, Sir Frederick Charles
Ward, Sarah Adelaide (Cannock)
Wise, Alfred H.


Thorp, Linton Theodore
Warrender, Sir Victor A. G.



Titchfield, Major the Marquess
of Weymouth, Viscount
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement
Whyte, Jardine Bell
Mr. Womersley and Commander




Southby.


NOES.


Acland, Rt. Hon. Sir Francis Dyke
Groves, Thomas E.
Maxton, James


Attlee, Clement Richard
Hall, George H. (Merthyr Tydvll)
Parkinson, John Allen


Banfield, John William
Hamilton, Sir R.W.(Orkney & Z'tl'nd)
Salter, Or. Alfred


Batey, Joseph
Harris, Sir Percy
Smith, Tom (Normanton)


Bevan, Aneurin (Ebbw Vale)
Hicks, Ernest George
Tinker, John Joseph


Cocks, Frederick Seymour
Holdsworth, Herbert
Wedgwood, Rt. Hon. Josiah


Cripps, Sir Stafford
Jenkins, Sir William
White, Henry Graham


Daggar, George
John, William
Williams, Edward John (Ogmore)


Davies, David L. (Pontypridd)
Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)
Williams, Dr. John H. (Lianelly)


Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)
Lansbury, Rt. Hon. George
Williams, Thomas (York, Don Valley)


Dobbie, William
Lawson, John James
Wilmot, John Charles


Edwards, Charles
Leonard, William
Wood, Sir Murdoch McKenzie (Banff)


Foot, Dingle (Dundee)
Logan, David Gilbert
Young, Ernest J. (Middlesbrough, E.)


Greenwood, Rt. Hon. Arthur
Lunn, William



Grenfell, David Rees (Glamorgan)
McEntee, Valentine L.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Griffith, F. Kingsley (Middlesbro', W.)
Maclean, Nell (Glasgow, Gavan)
Mr. G. Macdonald had Mr. D.


Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)
Mallalieu, Edward Lancelot
Graham.

Resolved
That the Sea-Fishing Industry (Regulation of Landing) Order, 1933, dated the fifteenth day of August, nineteen hundred and thirty—three, made by the Board of Trade under the Sea-Fishing Industry Act, 1933, a copy of which was presented to this House on the seventh day of November, nineteen hundred and thirty—three, be approved.

IMPORT DUTIES ACT, 1932.

9.18 p.m.

Dr. BURGIN: I beg to move, "That the Additional Import Duties (No. 17) Order, 1933, dated the twenty—eighth day of July, nineteen hundred and thirty—three, made by the Treasury under the Import Duties Act, 1932, a copy of which was presented to this House on the twenty—eighth day of July, nineteen hundred and thirty—three, be approved."
I feel I must ask the indulgence of the House for appearing before them so many times with Orders tins evening. I am rising to move the adoption of the Additional Import Duties Order No. 17, and with your permission, Mr. Speaker, and the permission of the House, I propose at the same time to consider Order No. 18 and 19; as to which the following Motions appear on the Order Paper:
That the Additional Import Duties (No. 18) Order, 1933, dated the thirtieth y of August, nineteen hundred and thirty—three, made by the Treasury under the Import Duties Act, 1932, a copy of which was presented to this House om the seventh day of November, nineteen hundred and thirty—three, be approved.
That the Additional Import Duties (No. 19) Order, 1933, dated the twelfth day of September, nineteen hundred and thirty—three, made by the Treasury under the
Import Duties Act, 1832, a copy of which was presented to this House on the seventh day of November, nineteen hundred and thirty—three, be approved.
I will make a short explanatory general statement, and then deal in reply with any particular questions which may be raised. All these Orders represent recommendations made by the Import Duties Advisory Committee. Upon those recommendations the Treasury have made the necessary Orders imposing the duties. The last occasion on which the House was asked to approve a duty was on 26th July, when Order No. 15 came before it. Order No. 16 did not impose a Customs Duty, and therefore did not require the approval of the House. It was to bring scales and other weighing machines haying bearings of agate under the same duty as weighing machines generally.
The three Orders we have to consider to-night cover 17 different classes of goods, and I think it is a matter of gratification to the House as a whole that we are able to embark upon the discussion of the subject a little after 9 o'clock instead of much later in the evening. The 17 chesses of goods are not connected with one another, and consequently if one were to go into details it would necessitate a very long explanation, but I think I can classify them in some way. Order No. 17 deals with glue and gelatine, No. 19 with certain kinds of dead poultry, and the whole of the remaining 15 articles are dealt with under No. 18. The 15 articles under No. 18 are: oats, oat products and pearl barley, split
peas, canned pilchards, fruit pectin, lactose, plants in flower, rose trees, bleached cotton linters, dressed leather, forged or cast rolls, aluminium sulphate alluminium oxide and confectionery. I think the House will find that some of those substances are more appetising than others. Hon. Members opposite have been good enough to intimate to me those topics in which they are more particularly interested, and 1 will devote more attention to them.
Glue and gelatine have been the subject of questions from time to time chiefly because of imports from abroad at prices which were wholly unremunerative to makers in those countries and made it very difficult for our home industry to compete with them. The glue is of various kinds and one kind, from osseine, is of particular interest. It is made from dried bones treated with hydrochloric acid. The advantage of this Order is that wherever one can make a useful substance by utilising large quantities of a by-product of another industry one achieves a double purpose, and the surplus stocks of hydrochloric acid in this country have presented a problem for some years. The development of the manufacture of glue and gelatine from osseine is important, and in the opinion of the Government the imposition of a duty of 10s. 6d, per cwt., or 25 per cent, of the value, whichever is the greater, ion that class of goods, is a particularly happy recommendation which should have beneficial effects on the industry. The glue comes from Belgium, Russia, Germany, France and Holland and is used for a very large variety of trades in this country. It is not expected that any hardship will be occasioned to the consumer by the imposition of these duties.
Another group of subjects which have frequently engaged the attention of the House are oats, oat products and pearl barley. The House will recollect that these commodities have come into this country in very large quantities, with consequential effect upon the industries of Scotland. The recommendations which are made by the Committee relating to oats, oat products and pearl barley will, I think, be very strongly welcomed by this House. The question may be raised why this Order, made a considerable time ago, was not put into force earlier.
The Report from the Import Duties Advisory Committee was dated 22nd June, and it was not until 30th August that it was possible for the Order to be made. The reason was that certain discussions were taking place with Canada in order to see that the imposition of the duty would not immediately be nullified by increased exports from Canada.
Another item on which the House might be interested to have a little information is the question of forged or cast rolls of steel and so on, which the Committee recommend should have a further duty. The Order relating to these rolls is really a reclassification: "forged or cast rolls of iron or steel for rolling-mills." The reason for this order is that the Import Duties Advisory Committee, who made the recommendations, are not the tribunal who decide the interpretation of their Orders. The interpretation of the Orders made by the Import Duties Advisory Committee is made by the Commissioners of Customs and Excise, and it may be that the definition in the first place has proved, in the opinion of the Customs, not to be quite apt to achieve the whole purpose that was desired. In the case of forged and cast mill-rolls it was held by the Customs Department that those were parts of machinery, and therefore were more properly treated as such than under "castings and forgings." The ground of that ruling was that paragraph (2) of the Second Schedule exempts from the various descriptions of iron and steel products dealt with, goods specially referred to in the First Schedule.
The effect of that provision was to exclude from Schedule II "parts of machinery," which are a class or description of goods in the First Schedule. The Advisory Committee thought it would be better to have a more appropriate classification for Import Duty purposes, and the provisions of this Order are made to make good that change through the interpretation placed by the Customs upon a previous Order. The amount of the duty depends upon the value of the steel per ton. If the value does not exceed £24 per ton, the additional duty is 23½ per cent. If the value exceeds £24 and does not exceed £40, it is such a rate of duty as will, with the general ad valorem duty, amount to £8 per ton
or 20 per cent., whichever is the greater. If the value exceeds £40, the additional duty will be 15 per cent. I give the duty in each case apart from the general ad valorem duty of 10 per cent.; that, I think, is the recognised procedure. There are a great many other subjects, but I do not think that I need go through the details until questions are raised by the Committee, when I shall be happy to give the figures of the imports for which I have the statistics, and particulars of the countries they come from and the uses to which they are put.
Hon. Gentlemen opposite have asked me to say a word about confectionery. This may seem rather a mysterious subject to be included in this Order. We are dealing with that awkward class of goods called a "composite article." Confectionery consisting of several materials, some of which are subject to budgetary duties, creates a very intricate position, but you may have a sweetstuff which contains sugar, cocoa or spirits, which are all already, by reason of their being matters 'included in the Budget, subject to duty in so far as they consist of these ingredients. Confectionery which consists solely of ingredients all of which are subject to other duties under other Acts are excluded from the Import Duties Committee altogether. Composite goods, however, which contain other ingredients besides those subject to budgetary duties fall within the scope of the Import Duties Committee, and this recommendation is to subject such composite goods in confectionery to the 10 per cent ad valorem duty in addition to budgetary duties. That is rather a mouthful, but I hope that I have made the point clear.
The other subject covered by the Order to which hon. Members opposite asked me to devote a word of explanation was the provision that dead poultry—fowls, ducks and geese, but not turkeys or guinea-fowl—should have such a rate of duty as would, with a general ad valorem duty, amount to 3d. a lb. That is an additional duty on dead poultry. Poultry producer here hold a very substantial proportion, of our market, but imports from abroad exercise an effect on prices in this narrow market wholly out of proportion to the volume of the import. That is especially the case where the foreign supplies, as is often true of dead poultry, are sent on
consignment to be sold at what they will fetch. The dislocation of prices in the home market caused by quite a small shipment of dead poultry on consignment is extraordinary. Therefore imports in those circumstances, in the opinion of the Committee, constitute an obstacle to further extension of the home industry and a menace to its existing position. The Committee, therefore, recommends this duty. In certain months of the year it has been the custom to rely upon foreign birds, but the Committee has received encouraging assurances that the supply of home birds will be sufficient, and in order, again, to keep some sort of check and control on the matter the Committee recommend that this duty should in the first instance, be imposed merely for a year in order to subject the industry to the whip and spur of the necessity for reorganisation. The matter will therefore be reviewed at the end of 12 months. It will probably meet the convenience of the House that I should ask that the three Orders be approved without further explanation, but I am ready and willing, with a very full brief, to answer questions that hon. Members in any part of the House may desire to advance.

9.34 p.m.

Mr. D. GRENFELL: The House will admit that it would be convenient to follow the hon. Member's suggestion that the three Orders should be discussed together. Although we felt, as the Parliamentary Secretary went along with his very lucid and confident explanations, that his term "mouthfuls" was justified, we were quite willing to do our best to swallow them, especially when he offered us sugar and confectionery as items towards the end of the list. It is really quite simple to discuss these recommendations, because the principles applying to each case are the same. Although the articles vary considerably in their character and in their relation to industry and the general cost of living and their effect upon our national economy, the principles so closely resemble one another that we can discuss them together.
There are a good number of questions on which we were pleased to hear that the Parliamentary Secretary will be prepared to give us information. He will recognise that there are so many subjects covered by these Orders that it is impossible for any one person to be able
to deal with the whole list. I am very much intrigued by this question of glue and size. It sounds sticky, which is very proper, coming from the quarter whence it does. I did not know that so much importance was attached to this industry. We all knew that there was a glue industry, and that glue is mainly made from bone. It is one of the industries based upon bone. There are, I understand, a variety of ways of taking the fat from bone and making glue, gelatine and other supplies which are derived from the destruction of bone. The hon. Gentleman told us that the new term was "ossein," which is just a new-fashioned term for the word "bone" which we all know so well.
We would like to know why this industry requires special protection. Bone is obtainable as a raw material in this country as cheaply and abundantly as anywhere else, as far as I know. Hydrochloric acid, and the benzine used in the special benzine process resorted to in the destruction of bone, as raw material in the manufacture of glue, are as easily obtainable in this country as in any country in the world. I do not think that it is satisfactory, when we have a surplus of hydrochloric acid, that we should raise Artificially the price of the bone in order to use the hydrochloric acid which we have in abundance. If there is an abundance of it in this country, why should that surplus not be used to lessen the cost of the glue, size or gelatine? That ought to be the argument for the removal of any artificial protection, rather than for the erection of protection in this matter. If the Minister had been able to say that we had been put to exceptional difficulties because of the lack of suitable raw materials, that would have been an argument for raising the price in order to enable us to compete, but when he said that we not only have an ample supply of these raw materials, but a surplus, and then said that, in the face of the surplus of hydrochloric acid and the abundance of benzine and bone, we still cannot compete with the foreigner and want to raise the price in this country to enable us to compete, it was not very convincing.
We are afraid that in this connection, as in all these matters where Protection is asked 'for, it is possible for inefficient
industries to be bolstered up by tariffs. Some of the figures cause one to think a great deal, and to suspect very strongly the standard of efficiency maintained in our industries. I really have nothing much to say on Order No. 17, except that I am still not satisfied, and that I shall expect the Minister to tell us what is the volume of business done in this industry, the special reason why glue and size cannot be manufactured in this country, and the explanation why, with raw materials of production so abundant, we cannot compete with other countries in the production of glue, size and gelatinous substances.
When we come to Order No. 18, we find, as the Minister said, that it deals with oats, barley, oat products and barley products, and, he said, oats in grain. Additional duties are to be put upon all kinds of oat products. I have looked up the figures of imports, and I do not find it borne out there that foreign oats are coming in at such a low price. There has been very little variation in the price of foreign oats in the last two years. I take the figures from' the reports upon trade and navigation, which show that in the first 10 months of 1031 the total quantity of oats in grain imported into this country was 7,843,232 cwt. and that, in the 10 months of 1S33, the quantity had been reduced to 4,385,591 cwt. At the same time, the comparative values fell almost in exactly the same proportion. I have made a calculation to check the figures, and I find that the value of each cwt. of oats in 1931 was 4s. Id. and, in 1933, 4s. 5d. They are not being imported at a cheaper rate, according to that.

Mr. H. WILLIAMS: Will the hon. Member give the figures for 1932?

Mr. GRENFELL: They come in between. I am giving the two years, and I find that the price is slightly higher this year. The volume of imports is down to very nearly one-half in those two years, and there is no special ground in the figures for the imposition of additional duties upon oats. One would like to know why it is now proposed to raise the price of an article of food which is of very great value in this country. The action will result in the raising of the price of that article of food, which is not only useful to human beings, but to
Scotsmen, for the making of porridge. Oats have been a good thing for the Scottish farmer, but the Scotsman who lives in London will find, when he has his porridge for breakfast, that it is dearer.

Mr. JOHN WALLACE: May I ask if the hon. Member is aware that, at the present time, oats produced in Scotland are being sold below the cost of production?

Mr. GRENFELL: Really, we have heard that so often. I have been in the mines, and I never knew coal to be produced at a profit. It is a case that is made out by those people who want Protection. If you raise the price of oats, you will' do very serious damage to the prospects of people engaged in other branches of the industry.
In regard to split peas, why cannot we produce them in this country at a competitive price against any other country in the world? It is difficult to find an explanation of our failure to produce split peas in competition with any part of Europe or of the world. Then, as regards pilchards, I think a definition is required. What is a pilchard? I believe that it is very much the same sort of fish as a herring and a sardine. You may have your choice, if you like, because it is the same fish.
Then we have fruit pectin. Why do the Government meddle with these small things, and bring in these finicky little proposals in order to protect them? What is fruit pectin? Is everybody aware that:
Pectin is a gelatinous substance used chiefly in the manufacture of jam to improve the setting quality. Until a few years ago pulped apple preserved with sulphur dioxide"—
it does not sound very nice—" was imported for this purpose, but recently this has given way to a large extent to concentrated pectin.
I do not know why there should be an additional duty on a substance of this kind; it seems to me that it ought to be prevented altogether from coming in. Why cannot we make our jams from British fruit, instead of using a camouflaging substance, the composition of which nobody knows, and the mere sight of which I fear from the description given on paper. There is also lactose; but the hon. Gentleman has covered the
list. With regard to iron and steel, I would ask him to allow my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypool (Mr. T. Griffiths), who is connected with the steel industry and knows a good deal about those factors which play an important part in the cost of production of steel, to put a few questions on that subject.
With regard to Order No. 19, which deals with dead poultry, excluding turkeys and guinea-fowls, I do not know why guinea-fowls should be left out, but one can quite understand the charitable feelings of a Government that does not want to put an additional tax on turkeys for Christmas. If it be the intention to allow turkeys to come in for the festive season without additional duty, we shall count that in favour of the Government, but we find that it is the intention now to raise the duty to 3d. per lb. on all imported poultry coming into this country. Let it be known that a large number of people in this country only get the chance of buying poultry when they can get a bit of cheap poultry, because they are unable to pay the higher prices which are still demanded for home-produced poultry. This is an attack on the standard of living of people who, when they get poultry at all, can only buy imported poultry. The Minister knows quite well, and I think there is an admission in the report of the Committee, that we shall still continue to require to import foreign poultry. If we do not produce sufficient poultry for our purposes at home, it will still be necessary to import it, and, if an import duty is put on foreign poultry, that duty will have to be paid by the poorer people in the country. We have criticised the general character of the scheme and put forward our opposition to the Bill under which these Orders are issued time and again. We find the issues raised so disappointingly paltry that we must again register our opposition, and we shall divide against each of these Orders when the opportunity occurs.

Mr. LOGAN: May I ask a question of my hon. Friend who has just spoken? When he was referring to oats, and said that oats were not only good for human beings but also for Scotsmen, what did he mean?

9.60 p.m.

Lord SCONE: The hon. Member for Gower (Mr. D. Grenfell) asked why we
should have these Orders brought in at the present time, and he expressed in-credulity when he was informed that oats were being sold at a price below the cost of production, while at the end of his remarks he said that all this seemed to him to be very paltry. It so happens that what is involved here is the livelihood, wages and employment of a large number of agricultural workers, and, although the livelihood, wages and employment of a large number of agricultural workers may seem of little moment to the hon. Member for Gower, I think that, if it were a question of the livelihood, wages and employment of a large number of miners, he would take a very different view of the situation. The fact remains that in the oat-growing areas, and especially in Scotland, we have seen during the last few years a steady reduction in the profits of the farmer, until in most cases he is running at a loss, and we have seen great reductions in the wages of the farm worker, which at the present time are barely sufficient to maintain him and his family. It has long been our boast in Scotland that we paid better wages to our agricultural workers than were paid in England, and to some extent that is still true, but, if we are going to have imports of oats and other things continually flooding our market at the present rate, we shall have very great difficulty in the future in paying wages sufficient to keep body and soul together, and, moreover, a very large number of our people will lose their employment; indeed many have done so already.
Although it is true that there has been a very large reduction in the imports of oats into this country, amounting roughly to some 950,000 cwt. for the first nine months of this year, the price of oats still remains lamentably low, and the price of foreign oats is still on the whole lower than that of home-grown oats. We who are intimately concerned with the production of oats feel, not that this duty is too much, but that it is really wholly inadequate. In fact, although I fear I may be trespassing beyond the bounds of order in saving this, many of us feel that a tariff is not really the way in which to deal with the subject. Further than that I do not think I should be entitled to go. We welcome this small protection for
what it is worth, but we would urge the Government to investigate the whole position in regard to oats and see if they cannot by some better method help to raise the price from the uneconomic level of to-day. The price per quarter of 3 cwt. to-day is something like 13s. to 14s., and nothing less than £l a quarter can be regarded as adequate.
At the same time we are glad of the small assistance of the duty which is now being provided, and also of the slight help that will be given by the increased duty on pearl barley and pot barley, and the very considerable assistance of the new duty on poultry; but I cannot but express my regret, which I know is shared by all those who are engaged in the production of turkeys, that turkeys have been excluded from the Order. More and more turkeys are being bred in this country, and I have received representations from all over the country—both Scotland and England—to the effect that, were turkeys included within the scope of the Order, it would be a boon to the turkey industry that would be of the greatest benefit to agriculture generally. We welcome this Order for the short distance that it goes, but we hope that in the future the Government will see their way, at least as far as oats are concerned, to introduce, new and even more drastic restrictions on imports.

9.54 p.m.

Mr. RONALD ROSS: I am glad to follow the Noble Lord who has just spoken, because I can speak in the same sense in which he has spoken. There is, however, one point on which I desire to correct him. He seems, naturally, to consider the question of oats as being an almost exclusively Scottish question, but it is nothing of the kind; it affects the farmers in Northern Ireland just as keenly as the farmers of Scotland. There is no other cereal which it is profitable to grow on the land that we have in Ireland, and it is notorious that farming without a cereal is impossible. We are driven to the cultivation of oats almost exclusively, because we have no alternative. This Order, which I welcome as fas as it goes, is, no doubt, of somewhat limited assistance, but the present position of the oat grower, whether in Scotland, in Northern Ireland, in England or elsewhere, is almost desperate. The
price has fallen by very nearly 50 per cent, since 1928. I agree that there has been a large decrease, as stated by the hon. Member for Gower (Mr. D. Grenfell) in the quantity of oats imported. But it is little satisfaction to a man who is working laboriously, trying to make a livelihood, probably on rather bad land, to hear that the volume of imported oats has decreased if the price is still too low to give him any profit on his labour.
Therefore, if one can draw any inference from the facts as regards the oats industry, it would be that a duty such as we have at present, even with this addition, would not be sufficient. In this country we can produce as many oats as can be required. The industry is facing a falling market. With the increase of motor traffic the oat producer finds his market decreasing in proportion and, therefore, particular attention should be devoted to the assistance of those members of the agricultural industry who produce oats. In Northern Ireland we are only producing a fraction of what we could produce. There are some 280,000 acres under oats. In the war period we had 455,000 acres. It is clear from that that there is a profitable field in agriculture open even to those farmers who, like us, have land unsuitable for other cereals. In order for it to be profitable steps must be taken by the Government to enable the producer to sell his oats at a reasonable profit, and, although I see the Scottish Office well and ably represented on the Government Bench, I rather wish that very overworked person who is doing so much for us, the Minister of Agriculture, had found it possible to be present, although I know his many duties make it very difficult for him to be here, much as he would like to be.
We are proud to say that in Northern Ireland we have a more intense population of fowls and poultry than any other part of the United Kingdom, so I certainly welcome the Poultry Order as far as it goes, but there are exceptions. Turkeys in particular are excluded. I have searched through the Trade and Navigation Accounts, and I am unable to find any figure dealing with turkeys. The volume of imported dead poultry is not a very large proportion of what we have, which is predominantly home produced, but still in 10 months imported dead poultry to the value of over £1,000,000
came into the country. It would not be satisfactory to take the figures for the first 10 months as notoriously the turkey is a seasonable creature and only makes his appearance at the time of good cheer in the neighbourhood of Christmas.
But why has the turkey been excluded from this Order? The turkey is the rich man's bird. Hon. Members on the Labour benches would not claim that their proletarian supporters are fed to any very serious extent on turkeys, and it seems most extraordinary that the turkey should not take his place with other deceased fowls in the Order. Why is there this discrimination against this noble bird? I am particularly interested as there are many turkeys in my constituency. I say that frankly. It is very difficult to find out what the position is, but it is well known that the price of turkeys at present does not seem to be going to be a particularly good one and I should have thought there would have to be some very definite, special reason to induce the Government to exclude them. While I welcome the Order as far as it goes, it is no time for my hon. Friend to sit back and feel confident that all has been done that could be done. There is still much more.

10.0 p.m.

Mr. MALLALIEU: I propose to confine my remarks to Order No. 18, making new arrangements for taxes upon some 13 different commodities, of which no fewer than seven are articles of food. I think it will be to the interest of the House to examine the reason given in some of these cases by the Import Duties Advisory Committee. Take, for instance, the recommended duty upon milk products and pearl barley. The Committee states:
Representations have been made to us that the whole industry engaged in the preparation of the various products of oats and barley is severely handicapped by the low prices at which foreign products are being offered in this country.
In the case of oats they say:
Owing inter alia to the low' prices at which imported oats have been obtainable.
In the case of canned pilchards they refer to a decline in the industry due in part to one thing, but in addition, they say, to the introduction in the home market of foreign canned pilchards at prices with which it is difficult or impossible for
British herring curers to compete. It is plain, from those reasons, stated quite frankly, that the object of the Committee, and, therefore, of the Government in adopting the Committee's recommendations, is to raise the price of these foodstuffs. I do not think there can be any doubt about that. I shall be interested to hear if there is any intention to bring these duties into force without raising prices. I have heard it said again and again by Conservative Members that that is the very object with which the duties are imposed. If that is the case, why is the last paragraph in the recommendations with regard to oat products and pearl barley as follows:
Certain by-products of the oats and barley milling industry, such as oats or barley husks, dust and husk meal, are largely used in the manufacture of feeding stuffs for animals and we have, therefore, excluded them from our recommendations.
The obvious inference is that the Government is perfectly prepared to put taxes upon the food of human beings but not upon the food of animals.
The only other point to which I wish to refer is one that was made by the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for East Bristol (Sir S. Cripps) on a former occasion. Here are 13 new taxes, or arrangements for taxes, being considered in one Order. There is only the choice, therefore, if Members disapprove, say, of one of them but approve of the other 12, to reject the 12 if they are to reject the one. It is an absolute mockery of parliamentary government for such procedure to come from this Government in view of the lip service that they pay to parliamentary institutions to introduce these 13 new taxes in one Order all to be debated, considered and decided at one fell swoop.

Mr. H, WILLIAMS: Will the hon. Gentleman tell me which of these Orders he desires to be passed?

Mr. MALLALIEU: None in this case. I put a hypothetical case "If any Member of this House desired." These Orders are all bad, but I think that the system upon which this particular batch of Orders was introduced was even worse than any one of the individual Orders.

10.6 p.m.

Mr. BARCLAY-HARVEY: I feel that it is only right that a Member who repre-
sents a seat in the north-east of Scotland such as I do which is very largely interested, particularly in the growing of oats, should attempt to lay the point of view of his constituents before the House of Commons on an occasion of this sort. I call the attention of the House to one of the chief difficulties with which we are faced at the moment—the economic position of the oat in the agricultural organisation of the north-east of Scotland. Put briefly, the oat in that part of the world plays the same part as wheat does in certain areas of England. That is to say, you cannot cultivate the land properly without growing cereals, and oats and barley are the only cereals which can be farmed for that purpose. The alternative to growing oats is that you must let your land go down to grass, which will mean a further increase in unemployment because it will mean fewer farm servants, and also that less land will be available for the more higher forms of agriculture. Therefore, it is desirable that the growing of oats should be encouraged in the north-east of Scotland, but the farmers find themselves faced with the position that, if they are to keep their land in a proper course of rotation, they are, in many cases, compelled to grow more oats than they can consume themselves on their farms. The result is that they have to sell a considerable proportion off their farms, and that proportion has become to be looked upon as a valuable contribution to the cash crop of the farm. The extent to which this is valuable was brought out in a memorandum issued by the Scottish Chamber of Agriculture from which I will make a short quotation:
To a substantial extent the oat crop is consumed upon the farm on which it is grown, and the price is not of much consequence as regards this part. But over large areas in Scotland the greater part of the crop is sold and, in fact, forms the main 'cash crop.' This is particularly true of the north-east and north of Scotland … which produce more than half of the total Scottish crop.
Therefore, the House will realise that in that part of Scotland from which I have the honour to come, the oat crop is a matter of very real and considerable importance. What is the position at the present moment? Again, I will quote from the same document. The average production cost, according to the Lovat Committee, was approximately 22s. a quarter. The average price at the pre-
sent moment, as the hon. Member for Perth (Lord Scone) has explained, is somewhere in the neighbourhood of 13s. 6d. It is lower in the North-East than it is in other parts of Scotland. The result is that there is an appreciable and heavy loss on every quarter of oats sold off the farm in the North-East of Scotland at the present moment. Again, to quote from the report of the Scottish Chamber of Agriculture:
According to the most recent calculation, 43 per cent, of the oat crop is sold off farms. At an average production of six quarters per acre, this proportion of the present crop on the Scottish oat area of 854,000 acres amount to 2,200,000 quarters, and taking the loss at 6s. 6d. per quarter, it will amount to £715,000. The greater part of this loss will fall upon the counties above mentioned.
The greater part of the £715,000 loss has to be borne by those counties in the North-East of Scotland. I do not think that that is a position upon which this House can afford to look with equanimity —certainly the Members for North-Eastern Scotland cannot. There is no doubt about the feelings of the farmers in that part of the world, and, after all, I am here to put the farmers' point of view, and not the individual point of view of a Member of Parliament. I was astonished to hear the hon. Member opposite who opposed the duties ask why this should be necessary, why we should want to increase the prices, and why the people who eat oatmeal, and others who require it for feeding-stuffs, should not get it as cheaply as possible. The one point upon which farmers who produce these things feel intensely is that they should be 'asked to produce their crops at a loss in order that some other branch of their industry or some other section of the community should thrive upon that loss. I think that it is a fundamental point, and that it is quite unfair that one branch of industry or section of the population should thrive at the expense of another section of the community. That is why they feel so intensely when that particular argument is used. If the hon. Members doubts it I would ask him to come up to the North of Scotland and see what the farmers in that part of the world have to say to him on the subject. [An HON. MEMBER: "The same applies to miners!"] We might have a joint meeting of Welsh miners and Scottish
farmers. And that meets the point raised by the hon. Member below the Gangway.
I wish to support this proposal because I think it is a step in the right direction. There is not, I believe, a farmer in the North of Scotland who will not say—and I must put this as I am speaking on their behalf—that this is not a sufficient duty. They are all anxious for a higher duty. I understand from the report of the Import Duties Advisory Committee that they are anxious to help the farmers of Scotland. They expressly state that they are putting on this duty with that object. So far we feel that it has not altogether achieved its object, and would like to see something higher. At the same time, most emphatically we are not prepared to vote against it to-night on those grounds. We shall certainly vote for it in the hope that it will be the first step towards better things to come.
There is one further point to which I would refer, and it was raised by the hon. Member for Londonderry (Mr. Ross). That is the question of turkeys. The turkey is a noble bird. I agree that, to a certain extent, it is a rich man's luxury, but I am wondering why this noble bird is not to receive the benefit of an import duty as well as the humbler chicken. There may be some reason for it, and no doubt there is. This year has been a particularly good year for the production- of turkeys in this country. To whatever part of the country one goes, one finds large numbers of turkeys, but when Christmas comes and foreign turkeys arrive the home producer will not get as good a price as he or she had reason to expect in the Christmas market. It is not yet too late to give them protection. I hope that some application may be put forward and that a duty will be imposed on the importation of turkeys, in order that the home producer may get the full benefit of the fine crop of these noble birds, and that their Christmas table will be cheered as well as the tables of those who hope to eat the product of their labour.

10.17 p.m.

Mr. T. GRIFFITHS: The hon. Member who has just sat down said that he did not believe that one industry should thrive on the back of another industry. On that point I should like to deal with the proposal for an additional duty on forged or cast rolls of iron or steel for
rolling-mills, whether finished or not, and I should like to give the Parliamentary Secretary some information about this trade. These rolls are used in the tin-plate mills, in the works of the gal-vanised sheet makers, in the section mills in the steel trade and also in the plate mills in the steel trade. They are manufactured in South Wales in the foundries. These rolls are therefore raw material although they are a finished product in themselves. They are the raw material of these particular trades when they come from the foundries. These rolls are very expensive. Sometimes in the tinplate and sheet trade there are breakages and when you get a breakage of a roll it is a very serious matter in so far as the cost of production in the tinplate or sheet industry is concerned.
As a trade union leader I can tell the Minister that we have more disputes and more trouble on account of the breakage of these rolls than from anything else, because the price of the rolls is so important in the cost of production. We have had many a stoppage, where a man has been suspended or dismissed as the result of a roll breakage. The point which I wish to drive home is, that if you are going to put an additional duty of £8 per ton on these rolls, which are to be used for the manufacture of other articles, you are going to cause more tension and more disputes, perhaps, in these industries when breakages take place. Rolls in the sheet and tinplate trade expand and contract according to the heat when the plates have been rolled through the furnaces in order to produce the finished article. I should like the Parliamentary Secretary to say whether the sheet and tinplate manufacturers applied to the Advisory Committee for this import duty, or whether it is the foundry people who have made the application. If so, hon. Members will see that one industry is going to be penalised as the result of our doing something to protect another.
The second point is this. Of the tin-plates produced in South Wales the galvanised sheets produced throughout the country—I want to be quite correct— we export about 80 per cent., and we have to compete in neutral markets with America. Although at one period previous to 1891 we were the only country
in the world which manufactured tin-plates, to-day they are manufactured in France, Italy, Germany, America and even in Russia; and Germany and America to-day are actually exporting tin-plates. Therefore we have to meet this competition in neutral markets, and when trade is depressed one penny per box will decide whether we get an order or not as against the foreigner in these neutral markets. The Parliamentary Secretary will understand that I am raising this matter in order to give him information on this important subject. Will he tell us from where these tinplate rolls are imported; to which part of the country they are imported, Scotland, England or South Wales, and whether they are imported in order to produce tinplates, sheets, sections in the steel trade or ship plates in the North of England and Scotland?

10.23 p.m.

Duchess of ATHOLL: I do not wish to add anything to what has been so well said by my Noble Friend the Member for Perth (Lord Scone) and the hon. Member for West Aberdeen (Mr. Barclay-Harvey) on the importance of the oat industry to Scotland and the grievous plight in which the grower of oats finds himself. What I want to stress, if I can, is the importance of developing the manufacture of oat products in the country as a means not only of helping to keep on its feet this ancient industry, but also as a means of helping the farmers. I realise that we are discussing an increased duty on foreign oat products, and one has to be thankful for every scrap from the rich man's table, but I cannot help remembering that so recently as last March the Scottish Farmers' Union asked for a duty of 3s. per cwt. on oats, a fixed duty on weight, not a duty that was going to slide with the price; and for a higher duty on oat products. What has been given is something very much less. The duty now is only about a quarter of what the farmers considered to be absolutely necessary in the plight they are in. The duty falls with the price, it is not fixed on weight, and I understand that since the new duty came into operation the price of oats and oat products has been lowered by some foreign suppliers so that the whole value of the duty is lost. In fact, I understand that it has been wiped out.
The Board of Trade returns give the countries from which oat products come, and a former reply which the Minister gave to a question of mine shows that in the past month Germany has been an important supplier of these oat products and pearl barley, and is particularly important having regard to the price at which she sends them. I am sorry that I did not realise that this question was coming up otherwise I should have put a question to the Minister. I should like to have got from him the price at which these things are coming in. But a few months ago, when he was kind enough to give me information, it was quite clear that Germany was undercutting her competitors in our market. She was under-cutting Canada and the United States in regard to oat products, and Holland in regard to pearl barley. My hon. Friend was also good enough to tell me that these products were coming in from Germany under a system of concealed subsidy—what I believe is known as the export bond system.
Germany is exporting other grains at low prices, and quite recently the Belgian Government have found it necessary to say that they would only allow grain to be imported into their country on licence. That is an indication of the seriousness of the threat of rye and grain coming from Germany, probably under some similar system. I have always felt that one of the most important agreements arrived at at Ottawa was the agreement by which the British Government undertook that if the value of a preference given to a Canadian commodity in our market was being threatened by the competition of similar commodities coming to this country under a system of State aid in order to lower prices, the British Government undertook to prohibit the entry of those commodities coming in under that very unfair form of competition. I have always regarded the adoption of that principle as of tremendous importance, because I believe that State-aided dumping is most injurious to international trade, and something that all countries which wish to see trade conducted on fair and honest lines should desire to end.
I cannot help feeling that in this case Canada might, if she wished, invoke this particular Clause of the Ottawa Agreement and ask us to prohibit the entry of these products accordingly. If she did
that it would be of great benefit, not only to the Canadian producer, but to the British farmer and the British oatmeal miller. Whether the Canadian Government does or does not take any action of that kind, it seems to me that the British Government cannot do less for the British producer, whether miller or farmer, than they have undertaken to do for the Canadian producer. With that Ottawa Agreement in view it seems to me that the British Government, if they find on investigation that this increased duty has had very little effect, might well consider doing something very much more drastic. If they do not feel inclined to prohibit imports of dumped and State-aided oat products altogether, they might very materially increase the duty.
I am told that the exclusion of German oat products at the present time would mean that about 360,000 cwt. more of British oats would be put on the market. There would be a demand for that quantity by the millers of this country. That would be a tremendous help to our farmers. I understand that Canada has undertaken for about three years to send us 600,000 cwt. of oatmeal. There need be no scarcity of oatmeal in this country, because 600,000 cwt. is a very considerable proportion of our present imports. Enough meal is milled in this country to enable us to turn out a great deal more home-made oat products than we are doing at present. I ask the Government to watch carefully whether this increased duty has any effect on the price of oats, oat products or pearl barley and, if they find that it has not, I hope they will be ready to do something more substantial to help these industries.
I welcome the further protection which is to be given to the glue and gelatine industry. The hon. Member who spoke from the Front Opposition Bench did not seem to understand why anything of that kind had been done. I understand that a great fall in the price of glue has taken place in the last few years largely due to the large increase of imports from Russia at cut-throat prices. Only a few month ago I heard that many very poor people who had as their means of livelihood the collecting of bones and selling them to the factories had lost that livelihood because of the effect of these importations on the price of British glue. I cannot feel confident that this increase
in the duty will be sufficient to keep out this Russian glue the importation of which has had such serious effects on the price of the British product. Still, it is a step in the right direction.
I am also glad to think that something is at last being done to give some protection to the home poultry farmer who has suffered greatly from the dumping of Russian poultry in this country. The quantity of poultry coming from Russia has been less within the past year or two, but still the price has been, for several years past, far below the price at which any other country can supply us and far below the price at which the home product can be made to pay. I notice that in the first nine months of the year Russian poultry coming in here averaged a price of less than 6d. per pound and I understand that something very much higher than that is necessary if the British poultry farmer is to be kept on his feet. When we remember how many ex-service men and particularly disabled ex-service men have turned to this kind of farming to earn a livelihood I think many of us, even if we do not like protective duties, will feel that we must do what we can for these men. Again I express the hope that the Government will watch narrowly to see whether these duties are really effective or not. I cannot help feeling some doubt as to whether they will deal with the ease of State-aided dumping from Germany or from Russia or from whatever country it may come and in that case stronger measures will be necessary in order to do what we wish to have done.

10.34 p.m.

Mr. HASLAM: I desire to intervene briefly in this Debate in order to associate myself as an English agricultural Member, with the representations that have been made by Scottish Members and by the hon. Member for Londonderry (Mr. R. Ross) in regard to oats. In this unexampled period of agricultural depression, the English farmer and farm worker have been considerably assisted by the Wheat Act passed in April, 1932, but the people in the northern part of the Kingdom have not been able to benefit from that Act in the same way as the agricultural community in England. It is only right and just therefore that the House
should extend a larger measure of protection in regard to the production and sale of oats. My only fear in regard to this Measure is that it may prove insufficient to deal with the terribly low prices which cereals now command in the world. I may point out further, to hon. Members opposite more particularly, that it is cereal production which employs labour, and, if we leave oats unprotected or protected by so small a duty as 10 per cent., it cannot but cause not only loss and ruin to farmers, but considerable further unemployment to Scottish agricultural workers. Therefore, I desire to associate myself with all that has been said on that subject.
I would like to make one further point and to ask the Parliamentary Secretary, as he was kind enough to say that he would answer questions, why turkeys are not included with other dead poultry in the duty. A very large number of British farmers and other farmers have embarked on turkey raising on the faith of the representations that have been put forward by Members of the Government that the British farmer was going to have first place in the British market, and to find themselves excluded is, of course, a somewhat bitter pill. I should like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary if he can tell us why the Committee have omitted to include turkeys

10.37 p.m.

Mr. R. W. SMITH: We are dealing to-night with a very important subject, namely, the oat question, and I want to draw the attention of the House and the Government to one or two points in regard to this Order. Various Members of the Government have said at different times that oats are of vital importance to the country, and certainly to the North of Scotland, and only yesterday I had a further reply from the Secretary of State for Scotland to the effect that he was anxious to find some way of assisting the oat industry. I want particularly to draw attention to the history of this Order. It was first applied for in October, 1932, by the National Farmers Union who asked for a 20 per cent. duty. In March, 1933, they renewed their application and said that 20 per cent, was not sufficient, and they asked for a duty of 3s. a cwt. on oats. AH last spring we agricultural Members
were pressing the Government to know what they were going to do for the oat situation in Scotland, and we were told that there was an application before the Import Duties Advisory Committee and that until that Committee had reported they could not take any steps. That went on, and in July the Minister of Agriculture informed us that he was then taking up the question of the import of oats from Canada. The Prime Minister of Canada was then in London, and on the 11th July the right hon. Gentleman stated:
I have taken the opportunity of the presence in this country of the Prime Minister of Canada to discuss this question with him, and I have his authority to say that we have every reason to believe that we shall be able to arrive at a mutually satisfactory arrangement.
Meanwhile, a communication has been received from the Import Duties Advisory Committee stating that the Committee understand that conversations have been initiated with the Government of Canada on the subject of the importation of oats into this country, and they are disposed to think that in those circumstances it is expedient to defer a decision on the application for an additional duty on foreign oats until they are acquainted with the outcome of those conversations."—[OFFICIAI, REPORT, 11th July, 1933; col. 947; Vol. 280.]
I would like to point out that as early as March, when the second application was put in, the National Farmers Union pointed out to the Secretary of State for Scotland that there was this difficulty with Canada, and asked the Government to negotiate with Canada and to come to some agreement to reduce her imports of oats. It was not until July that the Government took action. The Government have been dilatory in their action; it is reprehensible that they should have been so, and it does not show the interest which they profess to take in oats. This Order, although it has done a certain amount, has proved practically ineffective, as prices have gone down. Therefore, my contention is that it will not be sufficient and that the Government should do something more. Under the Import Duties Act an ad valorem duty is provided for, but Section 17 states:
Where at any time it appears to the Treasury, after consultation with the appropriate Department, that any duty chargeable under this Act on goods of any class or description by reference to the value thereof could be levied with greater advantage and convenience if that duty were chargeable by reference to weight or other measure of
quantity, the Treasury may by regulations direct that the duty shall he charged by reference to weight or other measure of quantity, as may be specified in the regulations.
There is something which the Government could do at once. They have their authority. The question need not be held up and the duty would be on quantity instead of ad valorem, which is much more satisfactory. It may be said that a further application should be made. I have read the Import Duties Act very carefully, and I see no difficulty in the Secretary of State for Scotland, who is Minister of Agriculture in Scotland, making an application to the Advisory Committee. There are steps open for the Government to deal with this question at the present time, and I press them to take every step they can, because every month that passes makes it worse for the small agriculturist in Scotland. I have no intention of opposing this Measure, because half-a-loaf is better than no bread. I say that the position has not been met by this Order. The very wording of the Order is that its object is to raise prices, but that has not been done. The Order has been in force since August and prices have not been improved. I beg the Government to do something more. The sooner some steps are taken the better.

10.45 p.m.

The SECRETARY of STATE for SCOTLAND (Sir Godfrey Collins): I am not surprised that many hon. Members from Scotland have risen to-night to voice the views of their constituents regarding the price of oats, especially in the North-East of Scotland. The actual facts of the situation have been pointed out to the Government in very moderate language. During the Recess I had the opportunity of coming into personal touch with many farmers in that area, and when they told me that in truth and in fact they were selling their oats at some 18 per cent.' below pre-War prices I submit that there could be no stronger inducement or argument which I could advance for the complete acceptance of this Order. I am sure every Member must feel intense sympathy with men placed in that awkward position. The Noble Lord the Member for Perth (Lord Scone) asked me if I had been investigating this question. I can assure him that I have been giving it very close attention during the last two months, and, so far as I can gather, the
informed opinion in the agricultural industry is this, that if the livestock industry were prosperous the price of oats, important as it is, would not be so all-important as it is this evening.
It is from that angle and from that outlook that we have been studying this question, and we have watched each week with anxious eyes the prices of livestock to see if the present restrictions, which have only been in vogue for a comparatively short time are responding to the particular treatment of quota. If I remind the Noble Lord that the restrictions during the first nine months of this year have not been great he will agree with me that during the last three months of this year these restrictions are much more intense than they were, and we hope that by that method some improvement in the wholesale prices of meat may follow, so that the livestock industry, not only in England, but in all parts of Scotland may have the benefit of that policy of restriction.
The fall in the price of oats bas been, indeed, acute, and at the same time the world production of oats has decreased enormously. The price of oats to-day is not entirely due to under consumption, because these prices have fallen month by month and year by year during the last three years, and the total volume of oat production has shown very marked decreases. I have some figures which I might submit to the House, but I will not trouble the House with them at this late hour. I would, however, remind hon.
Members, who have spoken with feeling and with knowledge, that the Government have placed in the hands of the farming industry two distinct weapons or two distinct policies which the farming industry can use. The men who are guiding and controlling the farming industry to-day in Scotland are shrewd and capable and practical men. It is undoubtedly true, as the hon. Member who last addressed the House said, that there have been delays but a reading of the White Paper will show I think that the Committee had sufficient reason for this. It is within the power of the farming industry to-day to re-apply to the Import Duties Advisory Committee for an increased duty if they so desire. They have also the power to put into operation a marketing scheme. I agree with some hon. Members who have spoken in former Debates that a marketing scheme presents difficulties, but if the industry will apply their minds to it, as I know they have, and if they find, as they may find, that a marketing scheme is praticable I know they will carry it into effect.
I submit to the House this evening that, either by one or two of the methods I have mentioned, it lies within the purview and the power of the farming industry to address their minds to these difficult questions. Far be it from me to say that one or other or both may secure the end that we all have in view, but if any words of mine could convey to these men on the north-east coast of Scotland not only my sympathy but the knowledge that their difficulties are being carefully studied by my advisers and myself, and that anything we can do to secure the return of that prosperity which we all desire for this country we will do, I should speak those words. I will say no more, except to say, as I said at the start, that there is an Order which comes before this House asking for a slight increase, from 10 to 20 per cent., in the duty on a product which is selling to-day at 18 per cent, below the pre-War price. However much any hon. Member may have in his mind past fiscal policies, if he will visualise the position of men faced with that tragic fact I submit that he and all those like him will unanimously support the Government this evening.

10.52 p.m.

Sir P. HARRIS: We have had a very remarkable speech, which will appeal both to the House and the country, but hidden away in a mixture of 13 duties covering an immense variety of products—raw materials, foods, manufactured articles, rose trees and metal goods—thisgreat new principle is covered up and might have passed almost unnoticed except for the diligence of certain hon. Members of this House. At the end of a long Parliament—I might literally say on almost its last day—we are allowed to discuss what is obviousy, according to the admissions of its supporters, a very large and important departure from policy. It is an important departure from policy. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland apparently has some qualms of conscience——

Sir G. COLLINS: No, I have not.

Sir P. HARRIS: Of course, we know the elasticity of the principles of many of our old friends and colleagues. People are extraordinarily adaptable. Some of my hon. Friends, old friends and colleagues, were very loud in their approval of duties on manufactured goods and even on raw materials in special circumstances, provided that they were not imposed on food products. The food of the people was to go untaxed. My hon. Friend the Member for South Croydon (Mr. H. Williams) is a consistent politician. I take off my hat to him at any time, because he has a long and consistent record behind him. He has an elaborate creed by which he can prove to his own satisfaction that taxes are always paid by the foreigner and that no new duty ever raises prices. But the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade are saying that these duties are imposed solely because they are to raise prices. If we are to make this departure, it should have been put forward by itself as a special Order, so that we could vote for or against it on its merits and with proper facts and figures to justify it. There has been no such attempt.
I consider that the Commissioners are to blame. The least thing that they could have done was to give a full and considered statement of the reasons for which they came to their conclusions. The Noble Lady put forward as an argument, I understand, the large amount of oats that came from Germany. I have been looking up the oat figures, and I find that they have not come in very large quantities. There has been an increase, it is true. Oats were not principally imported from Germany but from the Argentine, with whom, by the way, we have just made a commercial agreement, and I understand from the President of the Board of Trade that we are now to have a large increase in our trade in manufactured goods. Yet we choose this very time to make this departure of policy.
The second, and the largest, country from which we import oats is our own Dominion of Canada. I think that I am right in saying that, under the Canadian duties, they will come in free. We must be grateful for small mercies, and it is some satisfaction that the Dominion is not to be subject to this duty, but that
is a poor consolation for the unfortunate farmer in the North-East of Scotland who is to get competition from Canada. It does not make much difference to him whether he is ruined by Canada or by the Argentine.

Duchess Of ATHOLL: Will the hon. Member give the figures for oat products in Canada, in the first nine months of this year, compared with the first nine months of last year?

Sir P. HARRIS: I have the figures here for oat products, and, as a matter of fact, oat products had actually gone down, from nearly 600,000 cwt, in 1931, to 431,000 in 1933.

Duchess of ATHOLL: Oats or oat products?

Sir P. HARRIS: Oat products. The Noble Lady will be interested to know that the quantities have gone down to practically the same extent. [Interruption.] I am really arguing on the larger principle. When originally this new departure in our fiscal policy took place, it was clearly understood that wheat, oats and essential foodstuffs were not to be taxed beyond 10 per cent., and that if it was necessary to deal with those products, as was said over and over again by Ministers, that would be done by other means such as improved organisation, by marketing, and, for better or worse, by a system of quotas

Mr. J. WALLACE: Did the hon. Member vote for the wheat quota?

Sir P. HARRIS: No, I did not. I do not know what the hon. Member did, but I know that I did not. That was an irrelevant interruption. The point is that if foods were to be dealt in any way, they were to be dealt with by quotas. Food was not to be subject to an extra duty. Now we have this increase of from 10 per cent, to 20 per cent., and I say that that is distinctly a departure in policy, and is against the promises given to a great number of Government supporters who were quite prepared to support the principle of taxes upon manufactured goods, but who had pledged themselves to let food products in free.
I think it is unfortunate that, at the very end of a Session of Parliament, this duty should be smuggled through mixed up with 13 others in one Order. I hope
that the country outside, which is now beginning to wake up to what is going on, will begin "to realise how this great departure in policy is being used to smuggle in a whole series of food taxes. We know now what the majority of the supporters of the National Government desire. They are not content with 10 percent., they are not content with 20 percent., and I understand that they will not be really content until we have either a duty of something like 60 per cent, or something like prohibition. The Noble Lady was quite frank. She was arguing for prohibition in many of these cases——

Mr. ROSS: Which Noble Lady?

Sir P. HARRIS: The Noble Lady the Member for West Perth (Duchess of Atholl)—not the Noble Lady the Member for Plymouth (Viscountess Astor), who, however, is quite sound on this matter, and no doubt, had she been here, would have been loud in her protest against any duties on any form of grain stuffs. If my hon. Friends want to get wise on this subject, I can commend to them an excellent book by the Noble Lord, her husband. The Government are doing a very wrong thing in the way in which they are tackling this difficult problem of agriculture. Certainly it is a serious thing to stir up feeling, as this is bound ultimately to do, and as it is doing in the case of bacon—[Laughter]. Hon. Gentlemen opposite are amused at the idea that the working class are suffering from some of these bad taxes, but they are already beginning to realise it on the loaf and on bacon. There will be a day of reckoning sooner than hon. Gentlemen opposite may expect, and many hon. Gentlemen who sneaked in with Liberal votes will be made to pay for them.

11.2 p.m.

Mr. H. WILLIAMS: I have listened to the whole of this Debate, and, as the last speaker made specific references to myself, I would like to follow him on the subject of oats—the only subject on which 1 would like to follow him, and then not in principle. He does not seem to realise what has happened. The new duty came into operation on the 5th September, so that October is the first complete month of its operation. I am aware that no final conclusion can be drawn from what has happened in a month, but it is
amazing that, in the month of October this year, one-third of our imports came from Russia, as compared with none last year, the imports from Germany were six times as great as last year, and the total imports of oats from foreign countries in the month of October were substantially higher than last year, when the duty was only 10 per cent. That bears out what has been said by the Secretary of State for Scotland by implication. It was obvious from his speech that he is not satisfied with this duty, and the whole of the Scottish Members have pointed out the necessity for something more drastic, emphasising in particular the importance of making the duty a specific duty. In the old Tariff Reform League days, the late Mr. Chamberlain was constantly denounced by Free Traders because he spoke so frequently of ad valorem duties. They never ceased to point out how difficult it was to administer some ad valorem duties, and I agree with that up to a point; there are difficulties. There is the difficulty of valuation. I am amazed at the Import Duties Advisory Committee continually presenting to us ad valorem duties where what we want are specific duties.
Here is an outstanding case in point. The Noble Lady the Member for West Perth (Duchess of Atholl) referred to oat products. I have here the October figures. The oat products imported in October were 76,000 cwts., last year 75,000; value last year £80,000, this year £52,000. The average value has dropped 35 per cent. There is no possibility of doubt that the proposal in respect of oats is quite inadequate. We were all cheered by what the Secretary of State for Scotland said. He indicated that the industry ought to get busy and put in another application. I am certain all concerned will read the Debate with great care. It is clear what the feeling of the House is, and I hope it will not be long before an industry which can produce all our requirements is given adequate protection.

11.5 p.m.

Dr. BURGIN: I promised to answer questions. I think I need only answer two. One question asked was why were turkeys excluded from the Order. The answer is because the applications made by the National Farmers Union and
the National Poultry Council expressly asked that they should be. With regard to the rolls that the hon. Member for Pontypool (Mr. Griffiths) mentioned, they came from Belgium and Germany. They are used for rolling mills. They go to the Midlands, or wherever there are rolling mills, and we export great quantities of tin plates made through their agency. The hon. Member for Gower (Mr. D. Grenfell) asked me for a definition of pilchards. As it contains a number of Latin words, I will hand it to him privately. I would only say in regard to the speech of the hon. Member for Bethnal Green (Sir P. Harris) that, after hearing it, one would not think that the Import Duties Act was passed by a very large majority, that we are not discussing

the first Order made under it but Orders 17, 18 and 19. He complains of something being smuggled through at the end of a Parliament. There is no difference in principle between the Orders and for the convenience of the House they are grouped together. There is no constitutional principle. The hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Mallalieu) thinks it would have been better if we had 17 different Orders for the 17 different commodities, but he admitted that, if there had been, he would have voted against the lot, so it was consulting the convenience of the House as a whole that they should be grouped together.

Question put.

The House divided: Ayes, 188; Noes, 38.

Division No. 309.]
AYES.
[11.10 p.m.


Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel
Fraser, Captain Ian
Mayhew, Lieut.-Colonel John


Adams, Samuel Vyvyan T. (Leeds, W.)
Fremantle, Sir Francis
Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)


Agnew, Lieut.-Com. P. G.
Fuller, Captain A. G.
Milne, Charles


Allen, Lt.-Col. J. Sandeman (B'k'nh'd)
Gault, Lieut.-Col. A. Hamilton
Monsell, Rt. Hon. Sir B. Eyres


Aske, Sir Robert William
Gillett, Sir George Masterman
Morris-Jones, Dr. J. H. (Denbigh)


Atholl, Duchess of
Gluckstein, Louis Halle
Morrison, William Shephard


Bailey, Eric Alfred George
God, Sir Park
Moss, Captain H. J.


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Goodman, Colonel Albert W.
Munro, Patrick


Balfour, Capt. Harold (I. of Thanet)
Gower, Sir Robert
Nation, Brigadier-General J. J. H.


Barclay-Harvey, C. M.
Granville, Edgar
O'Donovan, Dr. William James


Barton, Capt. Basil Kelsey
Graves, Marjorie
Ormsby-Gore, Rt. Hon. William G. A.


Bateman, A. L.
Gretton, Colonel Rt. HOD. John
Palmer, Francis Noel


Beauchamp, Sir Brograve Campbell
Grimston, R. V.
Pebke, Captain Osbert


Birchall, Major Sir John Dearman
Gritten, W. G. Howard
Pearson, William G.


Blindell, James
Guest, Capt. Rt. Hon. F. E.
Peat, Charles U.


Borodale, Viscount
Hacking, Rt. Hon. Douglas H.
Penny, Sir George


Bossom, A. C.
Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry
Petherick, M.


Bou[...]ton, W. W.
Harvey, George (Lambeth, Kennington)
Peto, Geoffrey K.(W'verh'pt'n,Bllst'n)


Bowyer, Capt. Sir George E. W.
Haslam, Henry (Horncastle)
Pickford, Hon. Mary Ada


Boyce, H. Leslie
Haslam, Sir John (Bolton)
Potter, John


Braithwaite, Maj. A. N. (Yorks. E. R.)
Headlam, Lieut.-Col. Cuthbert M.
Procter, Major Henry Adam


Braithwaite, J. G. (Hillsborough)
Henderson, Sir Vivian L. (Chelmsf'd)
Pybus, Percy John


Briscoe, Capt. Richard George
Hornby, Frank
Raikes, Henry V. A. M.


Broadbent, Colonel John
Horsbrugh, Florence
Ramsay, T. B. W. (Western Isles)


Brocklebank, C. E. R.
Howard, Tom Forrest
Ramsden, Sir Eugene


Brown, Col. D. C. (N'th'l'd. Hexham)
Hudson, Capt. A. U. M.(Hackney,N.)
Reed, Arthur C. (Exeter)


Brown, Brig.-Gen.H.C.(Berks., Newb'y)
Hume, Sir George Hopwood
Reid, Capt. A. Cunningham-


Buchan-Hepburn, P. G. T.
Hunter, Capt. M. J. (Brian)
Reid, David D (County Down)


Burghley, Lord
Jackson, Sir Henry (Wandsworth, C.)
Reid, William Allan (Derby)


Burgin, Dr. Edward Leslie
James Winn-Com. A. W. H.
Remer, John R.


Butt, Sir Alfred
Jamleson, Douglas
Rentoul, Sir Gervals S.


Caporn, Arthur Cecil
Jesson, Major Thomas E.
Richards, George William


Chapman, Col.R. (Houghton-le-Spring)
Jones, Lewis (Swansea, West)
Robinson, John Roland


Clarry, Reginald George
Ker, J Campbell
Ropner, Colonel L.


Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D.
Kerr, Lieut.-Col. Charles (Montrose)
Rosbotham, Sir Thomas


Collins, Rt. Hon. Sir Godfrey
Law, Richard K. (Hull, S.W.)
Ross, Ronald D.


Colman, N. C. D.
Leckie, J. A.
Ross Taylor, Walter (Woodbridge)


Colville, Lieut.-Colonel J.
Leighton, Major B. E. P.
Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter


Copeland, Ida
Levy, Thomas
Runne, Norah Cecil


Craven-Ellis, William
Lindsay, Kenneth Martin (Kilm'rnock)
Russell, Hamer Field (Sheffield, B'tside)


Crooke, J. Smedley
Liewellin, Major John J.
Salt Edward W.


Crookshank, Capt. H. C. (Gainsb'ro)
Lloyd, Geoffrey
Sassoon, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip A. G. O.


Denville, Alfred
Lockwood, John C. (Hackney, C.)
Scone, Lord


Dugdale, Captain Thomas Lionel
Loder, Captain J. de Vere
Shaw, Helen B. (Lanark, Bothwell)


Duggan, Hubert John
MacAndrew, Lieut.-Col. C. G.(Partick)
Shaw, Captain William T. (Forfar)


Duncan, James A. J. (Kensington, N.)
MacAndrew, Capt. J. O. (Ayr)
Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir John


Edmondson, Major A. J.
MacDonald, Malcolm (Bassetlaw)
Sinclair, Col. T.(Queen's Unv., Belfast)


Elliston, Captain George Sampson
McEwen, Captain J. H. F.
Skelton, Archibald Noel


Elmley, Viscount
McKie, John Hamilton
Slater, John


Emrys-Evans, P. V.
McLean, Dr. W. H. (Tradeston)
Smith, Sir J. Walker- (Barrow-in-F.)


Entwistle, Cyrll Fullard
Magnay, Thomas
Smith, R. W. (Ab'rd'n & Kinc'dine, C.)


Erskine, Lord (Weston-super-Mare)
Manningham-Puller. Lt.-Col Sir M.
Somervell, Sir Donald


Erskine-Bolst, Capt. C. C. (Blackpool)
Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.
Soper, Richard


Essenhigh, Reginald Clare
Marsden, Commander Arthur
Southby, Commander Archibald R. J.


Spencer, Captain Richard A.
Thomson, Sir Frederick Charles
Williams, Herbert G. (Croydon, S.)


Spens, William Patrick
Thorp, Linton Theodore
Wills, Wilfrid D.


Stones, James
Titchfield, Major the Marquess of
Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George


Storey, Samuel
Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement
Wise, Alfred R.


Stourton, Hon. John J.
Wallace, John (Dunfermline)
Womersley, Walter James


Strickland, Captain W. F.
Ward, Irene Mary Bewick (Wallsend)



Stuart, Lord C. Crlchton-
Ward, Sarah Adelaide (Cannock)
TELLERS FOR THE AYFS.—


Sueter, Rear-Admiral Murray F.
Warrender, Sir Victor A. G.
Lieut.-Colonel Sir A. Lambert Ward


Sugden, Sir Willrld Hart
Weymouth, Viscount
and Major George Davits.


Summersby, Charles H.
Whyte, Jardine Bell



NOES.


Attlee, Clement Richard
Griffith, F. Kingsley (Middlesbro',W.)
Nathan, Major H. L.


Banfield, John William
Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)
Parkinson, John Allen


Batey, Joseph
Hall, George H. (Merthyr Tydvll)
Rea, Walter Russell


Cocks, Frederick Seymour
Harris, Sir Percy
Salter, Or. Alfred


Cripps, Sir Stafford
Holdsworth, Herbert
Smith. Tom (Normanton)


Curry, A. C.
Jenkins, Sir William
Tinker, John Joseph


Daggar, George
Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)
Williams, Edward John (Ogmore)


Davies, David L. (Pontypridd)
Lawson, John James
Williams, Dr. John H. (Lianelly)


Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)
Logan, David Gilbert
Williams, Thomas (York, Hon Valley)


Edwards, Charles
Lunn, William
Wilmot, John Charles


Foot, Dingle (Dundee)
McEntee, Valentine L.



Foot, Isaac (Cornwall, Bodmin)
Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.


Greenwood, Rt. Hon. Arthur
Mailalieu, Edward Lancelot
Mr. John and Mr. D. Graham.


Grenfell, David Rees (Glamorgan)
Maxton, James

Resolved,
That the Additional Import Duties (No. 1") Order, 1933, dated the twenty—eighth day of July, nineteen hundred and thirty—three, made by the Treasury under the import Duties Act, 1932, a copy of which was presented to this House on the twenty—eighth day of July, nineteen hundred and thirty—three, be approved.

Motion made, and Question put,

Division No. 310.]
AYES.
[11.17 p.m.


Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel
Davies, Maj. Geo. F.(Somerset, Yeovil)
Hunter, Capt. M. J. (Brigg)


Adams, Samuel Vyvyan T. (Leeds, W.)
Dugdale, Captain Thomas Lionel
Jackson, Sir Henry (Wandsworth, C.)


Agnew, Lieut.-Com. P. G.
Duggan, Hubert John
James, Wing-Com. A. W. H.


Alien, Lt.-Col. J. Sandeman (B'k'nh'd.)
Duncan, James A.L. (Kensington, N.)
Jamieson, Douglas


Atholl, Duchess of
Edmondson, Major A. J.
Jesson, Major Thomas E.


Bailey, Eric Alfred George
Elliston, Captain George Sampson
Jones, Lewis (Swansea, West)


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Elmley, Viscount
ker, J. Campbell


Balfour, Capt. Harold (I. of Thanet)
Emrys-Evans, P. V.
Kerr, Lieut.-Col. Charles [Montrose)


Barclay-Harvey, C. M.
Entwistle, Cyril Fullard
Law, Richard K. (Hull, S.W.)


Barton, Capt. Basil Kelsey
Erskine, Lord (Weston-super-Mare)
Leckle, J. A.


Bateman, A. L.
Erskine-Bolst, Capt. C. C. (Blackpool)
Leighton, Major B. E. P.


Beauchamp, Sir Brograve Campbell
Essenhigh, Reginald Clare
Levy, Thomas


Blinded, James
Fraser, Captain Ian
Lindsay, Kenneth Martin (Klim'rnock)


Borodale, Viscount
Fremantle, Sir Francis
Little, Graham-. Sir Ernest


Bossom, A. C.
Fuller, Captain A. G.
Liewellin, Major John J.


Bou'ton, W. W.
Gault, Lieut.-Col. A. Hamilton
Lloyd, Geoffrey


Bowyer, Capt. Sir George E. W.
Gillett, Sir George Masterman
Lockwood, John C. (Hackney, C)


Braithwaite, Maj. A. N. (Yorks. E. R.)
Gluckstein, Louis Halle
Loder, Captain J. de Vere


Braithwaite, J. G. (Hillsborough)
Goff, Sir Park
MacAndrew, Lieut.-Col. C. G.(Partick)


Briscoe, Capt. Richard George
Goodman, Colonel Albert W.
MacAndrew, Capt. J. O. (Ayr)


Broadbent, Colonel John
Gower, Sir Robert
MacDonald, Malcolm (Bassetlaw)


Brocklebank, C. E. R.
Granville, Ednar
McEwen, Captain J. H. F.


Brown, Col. D. C. (N'th'l'd., Hexham)
Graves, Marjorie
McKie, John Hamilton


Brown, Brig.-Gen.H.C.(Berks.,Newb'y)
Grotton, Colonel Rt. Hon. John
McLean, Dr. W. H. (Tradeston)


Buchan-Hephurn, P. G. T.
Grimston, R. V.
Magnay, Thomas


Burghley, Lord
Critten, W. G. Howard
Manningham-suller, Lt.-Col. Sir M.


Burgin, Dr. Edward Leslie
Guest, Capt. Rt. Hon. F. E.
Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.


Butt, Sir Alfred
Hacking, Rt. Hon. Douglas H.
Marsden, Commander Arthur


Caporn, Arthur Cecil
Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry
Mayhew, Lieut.-Colonel John


Chapman, Col R. (Hounhton-te-5prlng)
Harvey, George (Lambeth, Kenningt'n)
Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)


Clarry, Reginald George
Haslam, Henry (Horncastle)
Milne, Charles


Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D.
Haslam, Sir John (Bolton)
Monsell, Rt. Hon. Sir B. Eyres


Collins, Rt. Hon. Sir Godfrey
Headlam, Lieut.-Col. Cuthbert M.
Morris-Jones. Dr. J. H. (Denbigh)


Colman, N. C. O.
Henderson, Sir Vivian L. (Chelmst'd)
Morrison, William Shephard


Colville, Lieut.-Colonel J.
Hornby, Frank
Moss, Captain H. J


Copeland, Ida
Horsbrugh, Florence
Munro, Patrick


Craven-Ellis, William
Howard, Tom Forrest
Nation, Brigadier-General J. J. H.


Crooke, J. Smediey
Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)
O'Donovan, Dr. William James


Crookshank, Capt. H. C. (Galnsb'ro)
Hume, Sir George Hopwood
Ormsby-Gore, Rt. Hon. William G. A.

"That the Additional Import Duties (No. 18) Order, 1933, dated the thirtieth day of August, nineteen hundred and thirty—three, made by the Treasury under the Import Duties Act, 1932, a copy of which was presented to this House on the seventh day of November, nineteen hundred and thirty—three, be approved."—[Dr. Burgin.∼]

The House divided: Ayeis, 1S6: Noes, 38.

Palmer, Francis Noel
Roil, Ronald D.
Storey, Samuel


Peake, Captain Osbert
Row Taylor, Walter (Woodbrldge)
Stourton, Hon. John J.


Pearson, William G.
Runclman, Rt. Hon. Walter
Strickland, Captain W. F.


Peat, Charles U.
Runge, Norah Cecil
Stuart, Lord C. Crichton-


Penny, Sir George
Russell, Hamer Field (Sheffield, B'tslde)
Sueter, Rear-Admiral Murray F.


Petherick, M.
Salt, Edward W.
Sugden, Sir Wilfrid Hart


Peto, Geoffrey K.(W'verh'prn,Bilston)
Sassoon, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip A. G. D.
Summersby, Charles H.


Pickford, Hon. Mary Ada
Scone, Lord
Sutclitle, Harold


Potter, John
Shaw, Helen B. (Lanark, Bothwell)
Thornton, Sir Frederick Charies


Procter, Major Henry Adam
Shaw, Captain William T. (Forfar)
Thorp, Linton Theodore


Pybus, Percy John
Shepperson, Sir Ernest W.
Titchfield, Major the Marquess of


Raikes, Henry V. A. M.
Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir John
Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement


Ramsay, T. B. W. (Western Itles)
Sinclair, Col. T.(Queen's Unv., Belfast)
Ward, Irene Mary Bewick (Wallsend)


Ramsden, Sir Eugene
Skelton, Archibald Noel
Ward, Sarah Adelaide (Cannock)


Reed, Arthur C. (Exeter)
Slater, John
Warrender, Sir Victor A. G.


Reid, Capt. A. Cunningham-
Smith, Sir J. Walker- (Barrow-in-F.)
Weymouth, Viscount


Reid, David D. (County Down)
Smith, Louis W. (Sheffield. Hallam)
Whyte, Jardine Bell


Reid, William Allan (Derby)
Smith, R. W. (Ab'rd'n & Kinc'dine, C.)
Williams, Herbert G. (Croydon, S.J


Remer, John R.
Somervell, Sir Donald
Wills, Wilfrid D.


Rentoul, Sir Gervals S.
Soper, Richard
Windsor-Clive, Lieut-Colonel George


Richards, George William
Southby, Commander Archibald R. J.
wise, Alfred R.


Robinson, John Roland
Spencer, Captain Richard A.



Ropner, Colonel L.
Spens, William Patrick
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Rosbotham, Sir Thomas
Stones, James
Lieu, Colonel Sir A. Lambert Ward




and Mr. Womersley.




NOES.


Attlee, Clement Richard
Griffith, F. Kingiley (Mlddlesbro'.W).
Nathan, Major H. L.


Banfield, John William
Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)
Parkinson, John Allen


Batey, Joseph
Hall, George H. (Merthyr Tydvil)
Rea, Walter Russell


Cocks, Frederick Seymour
Harris, sir Percy
Salter, Dr. Alfred


Cripps, Sir Stafford
Holdsworth, Herbert
Smith, Tom (Normanton)


Curry, A. C.
Jenkins. Sir William
Tinker, John Joseph


Daggar, George
Jonas, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)
Williams, Edward John (Ogmore)


Davies, David L. (Pontypridd)
Lawton, John James
Williams, Dr. John H. (Lianelly)


Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)
Logan, David Gilbert
Williams, Thomas (York, Don Valley)


Edwards, Charles
Lunn, William
Wilmot, John Charles


Foot, Dingle (Dundee)
McEntee, Valentine L.



Foot, Isaac (Cornwall, Bodmin)
Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.


Greenwood, Rt. Hon. Arthur
Mallalieu, Edward Lancelot
Mr. John and Mr. D. Graham


Grenfell, David Rees (Glamorgan)
Maxton, James

Resolved,
That the Additional Import Duties (No. 18) Order, 1933, dated the thirtieth day of August, nineteen hundred and thirty—three, made by the Treasury under the Import Duties Act, 1932, a copy of which was presented to this House on the seventh day of November, nineteen hundred and thirty—three, be approved.

Motion made, and Question put,

"That the Additional Import Duties (No. 19) Order, 1933, dated the twelfth day of September, nineteen hundred and thirty—three, made by the Treasury under the Import Duties Act, 1932, a copy of which was presented to this House on the seventh day of November, nineteen hundred and thirty—three, be approved."—[Dr. Burgin.]

The House divided: Ayes, 186; Noes, 38.

Horsbrugh, Florence
Munro, Patrick
shepperson, Sir Ernest W.


Howard, Tom Forest
Nation, Brigadier-General J. J. H.
Simon, Bt. Hon. Sir John


Hodson, capt. A. u. M.(Hackney, N.)
O'Donovan, Dr. William James
Sinclair, Col. T.(Queen's Unv., Belfast)


Hume, Sir George Hopwood
Ormsby-Gore, Rt. Hon. William G. A.
Skelton, Archibald Noel


Hunter, Capt. M. J. (Brigg)
Palmer, Francis Noel
Slater, John


Jackson, Sir Henry (Wandsworth, C.)
Peake, Captain Osbert
Smith, Sir J. Walker- (Barrow-in-F.)


James, Wing.-Com. A. W. H.
Pearson, William G.
Smith, Louie W. (Sheffield, hallam)


Jamieson, Douglas
Peat, Charles U.
Smith, R. W. (Ab'rd'n & Kinc'dine, C.)


Jesson, Major Thomas E.
Penny, Sir George
Somervell, Sir Donald


Jones, Lewis (Swansea, Wert)
Petherick, M.
Soper, Richard


Ker, J. Campbell
Peto, Geoffrey (W'verh'pt'n,Bllston)
Southby, Commander Archibald B. J.


Kerr, Lieut.-Col. Charles (Montrose)
pickford, Hon. Mary Ada
Spencer, Captain Richard A.


Law, Richard K. (Hull. S.W.)
Potter, John
Spens, William Patrick


Leckie, J. A.
Procter, Major Henry Adam
Stones, James


Leighton, Major B. E. P.
Pybus, Percy John
Storey, Samuel


Levy, Thomas
Raikes, Henry V. A. M.
Stourton, Hon. John J.


Lindsay, Kenneth Martin (Kilm'rnock)
Ramsay, T. B. W. (Western Isles)
Strickland, Captain w. F.


Little, Graham-, Sir Ernest
Ramsden, Sir Eugene
Stuart, Lord C. Crichton-


Liewellin, Major John J.
Reed, Arthur C. (Exeter)
Sueter, Rear-Admiral Murray F.


Lloyd, Geoffrey
Reid, Capt. A. Cunningham-
Sugden, Sir Wilfrid Hart


Lockwood, John C. (Hackney, C.)
Reid, David D. (County Down)
Summersby, Charles H.


Loder, Captain J. de Vere
fled, William Allan (Derby)
Sutcliffe, Harold


MacAndrew, Lt.-Col. C. G. (Partick)
Renter, John R.
Thomson, Sir Frederick Charles


MacAndrew, Capt. J. O. (Ayr)
Rentoul, Sir Gervals S.
Titchfield, Major the Marquess of


MacDonald, Malcolm (Bassetlaw)
Richards, George William
Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement


McEwen, Captain J. H. F.
Robinson, John Roland
Ward, Irene Mary Bewick (Wallsend)


McKie, John Hamilton
Ropner, Colonel L.
Ward, Sarah Adelaide (Cannock)


McLean, Dr. W. H. (Tradeston)
Rosbotham, Sir Thomas
Warrender, Sir Victor A. G.


Magnay, Thomas
Ross, Ronald D.
Weymouth, Viscount


Manningham-Buller, Lt.-Col. Sir M.
Ross Taylor, Walter (Woodbridge)
Whyte, Jardine Bell


Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.
Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter
Williams, Herbert G. (Croydon, S.)


Marsden, Commander Arthur
Runge, Norah Cecil
Wills, Wilfrid D.


Mavhew Lieut.-Colonel John
Russell, Hamer Field (Sheffield, B'tside)
Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George


Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)
Salt, Edward W.
Wise, Alfred R.


Milne, Charles
Sassoon, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip A. G. D.



Monsell, Rt. Hon. Sir B. Eyres
Scone, Lord
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Morris-Jones, Dr. J. H. (Denbigh)
Shaw, Helen B. (Lanark, Bothwelt)
Lieut.-Colonel Sir A. Lambert Ward


Morrison, William Shephard
Shaw, Captain William T. (Forfar)
and Mr. Womersley.




NOES.


Attlee, Clement Richard
Griffith, F. Kingsley (Middlesbro', W).
Nathan, Major H. L.


Banfield, John William
Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pantypool)
Parkinson, John Allen


Batey, Joseph
Hall, George H. (Merthyr Tydvll)
Rea, Walter Russell


Cocks, Frederick Seymour
Harris, Sir Percy
Salter, Dr. Alfred


Cripps, Sir Stafford
Holdsworth, Herbert
Smith, Tom (Normanton)


Curry, A. C.
Jenkins, Sir William
Tinker, John Joseph


Daggar, George
Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)
Williams, Edward John (Ogmore)


Davies, David L. (Pontypridd)
Lawson, John James
Williams, Dr. John H. (Lianelly)


Davies, Rhvs John (Westhoughton)
Logan, David Gilbert
Williams, Thomas (York, Don Valley)


Edwards, Charles
Lunn, William
Wilmot, John Charles


Foot, Dingle (Dundee)
McEntee, Valentine L.



Foot, Isaac (Cornwall, Bodmin)
Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Greenwood, Rt. Hon. Arthur
Mallalieu, Edward Lancelot
Mr. John and Mr. D. Graham


Grenfell, David Rees (Glamorgan)
Maxton, James

Resolved,
That the Additional Import Duties (No. 19) Order, 1933, dated the twelfth day of September, nineteen hundred and thirty—three, made by the Treasury under the Import Duties Act, 1932, a copy of which was presented to this House on the seventh day of November, nineteen hundred and thirty—three, be approved.

ELECTRICITY (SUPPLY) ACTS.

Resolved,
That the Special Order made by the Electricity Commissioners under the Electricity Supply Acts, 1882 to 1933, and confirmed by the Minister of Transport under the Electricity (Supply) Act, 1919, in respect

of part of the rural district of Llandilo Fawr, in the county of, Carmarthen, which was presented on the 25th day of July, 1933, be approved."—[Lieut.-Colonel Head-lam.]

The Orders of the Day were read, and postponed.

It being after Half-past Eleven of the Clock, Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER adjourned the. House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at Twenty—five Minutes before Twelve o'clock.